Chương 180: 180：Casting the Net

"Lord Soren, I concede that your tactical prowess is astounding. But war is not a gamble!" Cedric's breathing was heavy, his bushy beard heaving with every ragged exhale.

"I know what you're doing. You want to perfectly display Greywater Village's combat power before me, and by extension, the Silvermoon Kingdom. You want to use a monumental military victory to force the high commands of both nations to reevaluate your worth.

"But this is sheer suicide! To clash head-on with an inspection delegation guarded by thousands of main-force elites? No matter how inhumanly strong your vanguards are, they will be utterly pulverized by the sheer weight of Orcish numbers!" Faced with their frantic, searing interrogations, Soren didn't show a hint of anger. Instead, he turned around. His gaze bypassed the anxious Cedric and Elena, landing squarely on Leona, whose brows were locked in a deep frown upon hearing the words "thousands of Orcs."

Soren broke into an incredibly relaxed, almost teasing smile. Crossing his arms, he spoke with absolute nonchalance:"Commander Cedric, you severely underestimate how much I value the lives of my men. If I threw them into a meat grinder just to show off to outsiders, I wouldn't be fit to sit in this chair." Soren shifted his gaze to Leona, an easy, familiar smile playing on his lips.

"Besides, I'm afraid you two have forgotten exactly whose tutelage I fall under.

"When Commander Leona of our Crimson Moon Knights instructs her officers, she has a famous golden rule that echoes throughout our ranks.

'The Crimson Moon Knights never take a loss on a trade.'

"I've taken that to heart as an ironclad military regulation." Leona, whose brain was currently short-circuiting as she tried to calculate the tactical nightmare of facing thousands of Orcs, was abruptly yanked out of her thoughts. Hearing Soren quote her usual bar-room braggadocio during a life-and-death strategic meeting caught her completely off guard. Her heroic, sharply defined face instantly flushed crimson.

"Ahem... well, you know..." Leona cleared her throat awkwardly. Yet, deep down, an inexplicable, thoroughly smug sense of satisfaction began to bubble up. This kid! To actually prop up his old superior's glorious image in front of foreign dignitaries—he really knew how to play the game! She immediately straightened her posture, puffing out her chest as she let out an enigmatic, haughty scoff.

"Damn right! Unless I have absolute certainty, I would never let my boys march to their deaths! Soren here has learned my ways well!" Watching Leona feign this masterful composure, Elena closed her eyes and let out a long, silent internal sigh of utter helplessness. Soren dropped the playful facade. Striding over to the map, he pressed one hand firmly over the red circle marking the Orc convoy, his mind wholly absorbed in calculating the enemy's fatal vulnerabilities.

"Commander Cedric. Priestess Elena. I need you to understand a fundamental concept," Soren began, his tone deadly serious.

"A raid is not a pitched battle where two armies grind against each other in open formation." Soren's words were sharp and absolute.

"Relying on a few hundred men to slaughter an inspection delegation protected by thousands? I haven't entertained such a brain-dead notion for even a second.

"My strategic objective is incredibly precise. It is a surgical strike." Soren dropped a piece of modern Earth military terminology onto the table. While the trio didn't quite grasp the exact definition of the phrase, the sheer, clinical ruthlessness behind the words instantly pierced their hearts.

"I don't care about wiping out thousands of Orc infantry grunts." Soren's finger stabbed viciously into the red marker representing the delegation.

"I am exclusively targeting the most critical, high-ranking Orc officers within that formation!

"The Misty Swamp's terrain is atrocious. A convoy of several thousand simply cannot maintain a tight, cohesive formation.

"Through a meticulously crafted tactical layout, we can completely sever their vanguard from their center and rear guard. If our only goal is to dive into the chaos, pluck a few aristocratic heads, and pull out entirely unharmed... then this battle is absolutely winnable." The moment these outrageously arrogant—yet terrifyingly logical—words left his mouth, the atmosphere in the cabin shifted violently. To execute enemy high-commanders amidst an ocean of troops, sever their heads, and retreat without a scratch?

How was that even physically possible?! It immediately hooked Leona, Elena, and Cedric with an agonizing, irresistible curiosity. Cedric involuntarily locked his gaze onto Soren. Leona and Elena quickly stepped up to the table. The three of them stared intently at the sprawling combat map, collectively holding their breath as they waited to see exactly how this man planned to orchestrate such an earth-shattering tactical maneuver.

Just as Soren was about to order his personal bodyguard, Lyra, to blow the assembly horn and summon his captains... [Ding!] [Mission Objective: A high-ranking inspection delegation from the Orcish Alliance's Blood Province has entered the immediate vicinity of the Lord's territory. Crush them! Decapitate at least two high-ranking Orc military officers holding the title of Baron or higher from amidst their escorts!] The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

[Mission Reward: Upgrade the Blacksmith. Master the smelting and mass-production capabilities for Black Steel Equipment!] Soren's heart hammered against his ribs. Years of brutal Special Forces conditioning kept his outward expression as steady as a mountain. Only his hands, clasped firmly behind his back, clenched into white-knuckled fists. Black Steel Equipment! In this era of low-magic cold steel warfare, the primary armor fielded by the major factions was forged from crude, impurity-ridden black iron.

Yet, even so, black iron heavy armor was more than enough to turn heavy infantry into mobile fortresses on the battlefield. But what was Black Steel? It was an alloy achieved through incredibly strict carbon ratios and repeated high-temperature forging, purging every trace of pig-iron slag. The resulting material saw its toughness and hardness increase exponentially!

A suit of Black Steel armor of the exact same thickness would weigh a mere seventy percent of its black iron counterpart, yet its defensive capabilities against blunt-force trauma, crossbow penetration, and heavy axe cleaves would be magnified several times over! Not to mention using it to forge the blades of heavy halberds—it would create absolute armor-piercing weapons capable of slicing through iron like mud!

If he secured this reward, the battlefield survivability and mobility of his highly prized, seventy-man Frontline Elite Battalion would ascend to an entirely new echelon! He absolutely had to fight this battle, and he had to execute it flawlessly!

"Lyra!" Snapping back to reality, Soren barked into the darkness beyond the door.

"Here!" The silver-haired girl instantly pushed the door open, silently dropping to one knee before him.

"Ring the bronze bell! Summon all combat battalion commanders to the high command post immediately for deployment orders!"

"By your command!" A few moments later. The thick wooden door was pushed open repeatedly. The scent of medicinal herbs wafted in alongside Pikeman Commander Kyle. Then came the Hobgoblin, Luger, resting a massive iron hammer on his shoulder; the grim-faced swimming instructor, Darion; the Half-Elf Commander, Ilya, moving as fluidly as the wind; the martial monk, Renn; the Wolf Cavalry Commander, Buck; and the sharpshooter, Ein. The entire absolute core of Greywater Village's military filed into the room.

Because foreign dignitaries were present, these commanders—who would normally be slapping each other on the back and trading rough banter—displayed a chilling level of military discipline. Without uttering a single extraneous word, they immediately assumed their designated positions and stood rigidly at attention. Eleven commanders, each possessing apex-tier talents, formed an expressionless, imposing line, silently awaiting the orders of their Warlord.

Watching this display of ironclad control, Commander Cedric's eyes burned with intense envy. He continuously lamented in his heart why the Ironpeak Duchy couldn't cultivate such apex predators to lead their armies. Soren drew a bone-handled dagger from his waist. Flipping his grip, he slammed the blade down, pinning it directly into the vast territory on the map representing the Misty Swamp.

"Gentlemen," Soren began slowly.

"Meyer's intelligence has confirmed it. Our old rival, Warchief Blackstone, is currently rolling out the red carpet for a group of VIP overseers from the southern provinces.

"We have deduced with a high degree of certainty that this inspection delegation is heading toward the frontlines bordering the Holy Halycon Empire—specifically, they are making a beeline for Boulder Fortress!" Kyle rubbed his bald head, speaking in a gruff, booming voice.

"My Lord, if we already know they're heading for Boulder Fortress, why don't we just set up an ambush halfway along the road?"

"Idiot," Soren reprimanded without even looking up, though a cunning glint flashed in his eyes.

"The Misty Swamp spans thousands of miles. Just counting the canyon passes, shallow bogs, and hidden forest trails capable of accommodating a large army... there are no less than twenty routes.

"The terrain is so ridiculously complex that even a Demon Croc born and raised here for a century could get lost.

"We have absolutely no way of confirming their exact march route!

"If we clump our few hundred men together in a single canyon and just wait, there's a massive chance they'll simply swagger down a hidden plank road ten miles away and completely bypass us!"

"Therefore," Soren took a deep breath. Lifting his head, he tapped into the classic "Cast Net" tactical doctrine utilized in Earth's Special Operations, outlining a staggeringly bold deployment.

"I have decided that we will break the whole into parts! We will completely scatter our unit formations! The entire army will split up and fan out, weaving together an inescapable, three-dimensional killing net!" The moment those words dropped, Leona and Cedric exchanged a glance, both reading the sheer shock in each other's eyes.

When facing an enemy force that vastly outnumbered their own, any conventional general would be desperate to clench their limited troops together into a single, unbreakable fist to avoid being picked off one by one. Yet Soren actually had the absolute audacity to divide his forces within the treacherous Misty Swamp?!