Chương 176: 176：The Anatomy of a Victory

"Indeed," Cedric choked out, desperately trying to console himself inwardly. At least in Soren's hands, this batch of weapons slaughtered the Orcs down to the last man. They've been utilized to their maximum value. It's not a loss... not a total loss! Forcing a stiff, agonizing smile, he nodded in agreement. Completely oblivious to the internal drama, Leona stared at the punctured iron plating and clapped in sheer awe, showering the longbow unit with endless praise.

Elena, however, saw the true, underlying terror of this formation. The rhythm of every single archer—their breathing, the draw of their bowstrings, the pause, and the release—was astoundingly synchronized. Not a single man broke rank to show off his individual skills or fire out of turn.

"Exceptional weapons are important, certainly," Elena murmured, her pale golden eyes locking onto the sharpshooter, Ein, as she pierced to the heart of the matter.

"But the true essence of war lies in the caliber of the soldiers. No matter how powerful the longbow, it requires discipline etched into the very marrow of the archers to unleash its true lethality." She paused, looking at Soren.

"Your draconian military discipline is your true path to victory." The final stop of their inspection lay at the highest, most scorching zone directly above the dormant volcanic crater: the engineering yard managed by the Hobgoblin, Luger. The moment she stepped into the massive open-air workshop, greeted by the deafening grind of interlocking gears and the pungent stench of sulfur, Leona's footsteps abruptly halted. She froze in her tracks, completely overwhelmed.

Perched atop a leveled stone platform stood two colossal siege weapons, constructed from massive, raw logs and heavy iron hinges. They were two large-scale gravity trebuchets, towering over eight meters high. Their massive counterweight boxes were loaded with thousands of pounds of lead and raw ore. Lined up neatly beside them were spherical stone projectiles, each standing half as tall as a grown man.

As the fierce wind swept past, the thick hempen ropes coiled tightly around the machines groaned and creaked under immense tension. Staring up at these behemoths, Leona—the notoriously brash, boisterous Goddess of War—suddenly felt her eyes burn. Tears welled up in her crimson eyes. Overwhelmed with emotion, her lips trembled as she let out a deeply sorrowful sigh. Just over two months ago, she had commanded the desperate defense of the Storm Rift Fortress. Warchief Blackstone's grand army had besieged the city.

Initially, relying on their towering walls, the Crimson Moon Knights had managed to hold the line. That was until a few days later, when the Orc horde erected several monstrous heavy trebuchets outside the gates. Faced with the absolute certainty that the fortress would fall to the bombardment, she had been forced to disobey the Silvermoon Kingdom's standing orders to fight to the last man. She led her remnants in abandoning the walls, charging out to engage the Orcs in a suicidal, meat-grinder of a melee.

It was exactly because of this insubordination that her legion was ultimately condemned and exiled into the Misty Swamp. That very battle had also been the crucible that forged Soren's fame.

"What ridiculously massive stone-chuckers..." Leona muttered, mocking herself for being an ignorant brute who only knew how to swing a giant slab of iron. She stepped forward, running a gloved hand along the cool, polished wooden track of the firing arm, a chaotic storm of emotions swirling in her chest. This was the exact kind of heavy firepower that had nearly shattered her fortress and slaughtered her kin.

Yet now, Soren—a mere battalion captain operating deep within enemy territory—had somehow erected them from the dirt of his own village! This meant that Soren didn't just possess an impregnable iron wall for defense; he now wielded strategic-class ordnance capable of dictating the outcome of a siege! Elena drew closer to inspect the machinery. Drawing upon the vast, profound knowledge she had cultivated within the Church of the Bright Moon's grand archives, her face suddenly lit up with brilliance.

She pointed at a highly complex, triple-linked pulley block mounted on the side of the trebuchet.

"The heavily modified gears and winches on this machine exhibit the exquisite signatures of advanced Goblin engineering! Such ingenuity could easily double both the firing range and the accuracy!" Standing off to the side, the Hobgoblin, Luger, proudly puffed out his chest, letting out a raspy, cackling laugh. Enveloped by the massive shadow of the trebuchets, Leona, Elena, and Cedric fell into a long, profound silence.

Top-tier cold steel weaponry, a multi-racial coalition utilizing each species' unique strengths, a fiercely loyal and highly motivated civilian logistics base, and now, a heavy trebuchet artillery battery displayed right before their eyes. None of them could ever look at the man standing before them with the patronizing gaze of an inspecting superior again. The three of them exchanged another glance, all reading the exact same realization in each other's eyes.

In this treacherous Misty Swamp stretching for thousands of miles, Soren was no longer merely the Vice-Commander of the Crimson Moon Knights. He was, in every sense of the word, an undisputed Warlord. The day-long inspection had finally come to an end. Commander Cedric of the Ironpeak Duchy looked pale and thoroughly rigid. He allowed a soldier to guide him to his designated guest quarters without uttering a single word. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

In his mind, he was obsessively, pessimistically running combat simulations, calculating exactly how tragically his proud heavy infantry would be butchered if they ever crashed into a defensive line comprised of magically enchanted Elf Rangers and Goblin-engineered trebuchets. Down the hall, a village guide pushed open the wooden door to another guest room, this one filled with the dry, crisp scent of pine. Leona strode inside. Thud.

The notoriously fierce and decisive red-haired commander carelessly leaned her massive slab of a greatsword against the wall. Completely drained, she let herself fall backward, crashing heavily onto the wooden bed lined with soft, perfectly dried bearskins. The military priestess, Elena, followed closely behind her. She pushed the door shut, cutting off the faint, rhythmic sounds of military drills drifting in from the training grounds outside.

Gazing down at Leona's dazed, unfocused eyes, Elena offered a gentle smile. She poured a cup of warm, purified water from the village supply and handed it to the bedside.

"What's this? Is our fearless Commander Leona so terrified of her own subordinate that she's lost her voice?" Elena teased, her tone as soft and soothing as ever. Leona abruptly sat up. Snatching the cup, she downed the water in a single gulp, her chest heaving violently. For once, she didn't offer her usual stubborn retort. Instead, she stared intensely at the smoothly polished wooden cup in her hands, a profoundly complex shimmer of moisture gathering in the depths of her eyes.

"Elena... when the Kingdom forced the Crimson Moon Knights into the Misty Swamp, in order to save this army—the army I poured my life's blood into—from being forcibly disbanded on the spot... do you remember the military mandate I signed?" Leona's voice carried a rare, vulnerable tremble. Hearing this, Elena's serene expression instantly darkened. To completely reclaim the Misty Swamp within one year. In the treacherous political chessboard of the Royal Court, it was an absolutely impossible, fatal trap.

Not only was the Misty Swamp an abhorrent environment, but it was also crawling with a hundred thousand elite Orcs of the Blackstone Warband. The grand nobles of the Kingdom's high command merely wanted to give the Crimson Moon Knights a legally justified reason to die. The moment the one-year deadline arrived, even if they somehow survived the jaws of the Orcs, the charge of failing a military mandate would give the Kingdom's Inquisitors the perfect excuse to send every last one of them to the gallows.

For the past six months, this seemingly brash and carefree female Commander had actually suffered from agonizing insomnia every single night, secretly hacking countless wooden training posts into splinters within her tent.

"I honestly believed we were all dead men walking. I had even made my peace with it. I planned to rally all two thousand six hundred of our brothers, pick a day with good weather, and launch a suicidal, all-out charge against Bloodfang Fortress." Leona closed her eyes.

"At least that way, we could die holding onto the highest glory of a Knight." Abruptly, Leona stood up and strode to the window. Pushing the wooden lattice panes open, she looked down at the highly organized, bustling Greywater Village. She watched the squads of heavily armored, elite warriors conducting their evening cross-rotations in perfect synchronization. She clenched her fists so tightly her knuckles popped.

"But today, Elena... I saw hope!" Leona spun around, her face ablaze with an overwhelming, soaring battle lust.

"A force nearly a thousand strong, armed to the teeth! Abundant logistics! Flawless synergy between Goblins, Half-Elves, and Humans!

"Under Soren's command, an impregnable war fortress has actually taken root in this accursed swamp!

"With his elite legions acting as the vanguard, and my two thousand six hundred brothers securing the flanks... what I once thought was nothing but a fairy tale—the total reclamation of the Misty Swamp..." Smack! Leona slapped her thigh hard, the sharp sound echoing through the room.

"Looking at it now, it's not so fucking impossible after all!" Witnessing Leona's radiant resurgence of vitality, Elena's eyes curved into crescents of genuine, deeply relieved joy. Soren had undoubtedly become the unshakeable pillar of strength in the hearts of everyone trapped in this desperate wasteland. Dusk fell. Inside the stilted wooden command post. Having just sent the inspection party to their quarters, Soren sat upright behind his massive wooden desk.

Spread out before him was the [Topographical Map of the Misty Swamp], heavily marked with a chaotic array of colored charcoals. Suddenly, a nearly imperceptible disturbance shifted the airflow in the room. Just three steps away from Soren, the space twisted like a mirage.

"It's me," a gravelly voice whispered. Meyer, the Intelligence Captain, deactivated his [Chameleon] talent, shedding his perfect environmental camouflage as he materialized from the shadows. He was utterly drenched in foul, rancid black mud, with rotting leaves clinging to his eyebrows. It was obvious he had just swam his way back from the deepest, most hazardous core of the mire.

"Lyra, sheath your daggers. Set up a hundred-meter perimeter outside the door. Without my express orders, even Mage Victor is not to approach." Soren didn't even lift his head, his full, unyielding concentration locked onto the map before him.