Chương 188: 188：Wrath of the Bright Moon

Just as the enemy chain of command scrambled to re-establish itself, an accompanying Orc Shaman hiding in the absolute center of the heavy shield wall raised a wicked bone totem, preparing to cast [Mass Earth Shield]. Swish! Another arrow tore through the air. A specially crafted [Silver-Plated Armor-Piercing Arrow] struck with pinpoint, horrifying precision exactly as the Shaman raised his hand to cast, nailing itself brutally into the Shaman's crazed, chanting mouth! BOOM! The arrowhead detonated.

The Shaman's skull shattered instantly. The massive well of magical energy he had just gathered violently violently backfired, triggering a catastrophic elemental explosion right in the center of their own formation, blasting over a dozen Black Iron Orcs into the sky. Soren's movements were a fluid, terrifying display of lethal efficiency. Every single time his bowstring thrummed, a low-level enemy officer or a casting Shaman died a sudden, gruesome death.

In the span of a single minute, Soren executed a systematic, roll-call sniper barrage. This draconian suppression ruthlessly severed the enemy's attempts to form an effective counter-charge the microsecond they peeked their heads out. Even worse for the Orcs, the magical countermeasures of the escort were completely and utterly paralyzed!

"Kill! Butcher these cowards hiding in the mist!" The lower frontline completely collapsed. Driven into a corner and bristling with crossbow bolts, several Orc lieutenants descended into a berserker rage. Utilizing the massive, fleshy bulks of the dead Kodo Beasts as cover, they attempted to force a violent breakthrough up a narrow, winding goat path on the left cliff face. Just as this crisis emerged on the flank, Priestess Elena—who was positioned right beside Soren—decisively struck.

Though she was renowned throughout the Church as a Priestess of the Bright Moon, a beacon of mercy and healing, facing these evil, encroaching beasts in the crucible of slaughter fully ignited her righteous fury. Elena violently threw back the oversized hood of her pristine white robes.

"The radiance of the Bright Moon! Descend and judge these wretched foes!" She hoisted her mithril staff high into the air and slammed it downward with absolute authority. Pure, unblemished holy power from the Bright Moon instantly coalesced. Hum! A sharp, piercing shriek tore through the air. A blindingly radiant [Purifying Beam] erupted, unleashing a column of intense light that cleaved straight down the face of the cliff!

The beam struck the charging Orc lieutenants head-on just as they stepped onto the sheer path, heavy axes raised to breach the ambush line. Under the sun-like, searing heat of pure holy fire, the notoriously resilient black steel armor they wore actually began to rapidly melt! The Orcs trapped inside didn't even have time to scream.

Their flesh, blood, and bones were completely incinerated under the beam of absolute judgment, turning them into pitch-black, charred husks that tumbled uselessly down the side of the cliff.

"What an overbearing Holy Light..." Soren glanced over between shots, offering his genuine admiration.

"Beautifully done, Priestess! If the pampered lords of the Church were half as good at butchering the enemy as you are, this war would be a hell of a lot easier to fight!" Receiving Soren's frank, soldierly praise, a fleeting blush crept across the usually dignified and composed Elena's immaculate cheeks. However, she didn't shrink back. Instead, she tightened her grip on her staff, standing firmly alongside the rogue, Lyra, to securely lock down both flanks of the ambush zone.

In the span of a brutal, agonizing ten minutes. Within this narrow mountain pass less than a hundred meters long, the very color of the earth was fundamentally rewritten. Stinking, dark green Orc blood pooled in the mud, converging into rushing, torrential streams. The three hundred Black Iron Orc infantrymen forming the outer perimeter were systematically mowed down under the overwhelming, high-elevation crossfire of the heavy repeating crossbows.

Unable to mount a single effective counterattack, they suffered catastrophic casualties. The vast majority of them, riddled with half a dozen bolts, were currently twitching and wailing miserably in the bloody mire. And backed into the dead angle of the cliff, seeking refuge from the storm of steel... The dozen high-ranking officers from the Blood Province, who had been lavishly dressed and incredibly arrogant just moments before, were now in a state of utter, miserable disarray.

Their pristine White Jade Direbear pelts were heavily splattered with the blood, brain matter, and evacuated bowels of their subordinates. The Governor-General's high-and-mighty nephew was so paralyzed by terror that he had curled into a fetal position in a rocky depression, clutching his head and shivering violently. The remaining hundred or so [Black Steel Orc Elites] utilized a highly durable, recessed rock overhang at the far end of the ravine to construct an impenetrable turtle formation.

Their heavy tower shields overlapped layer upon layer, creating a sealed fortress of iron that strictly protected the high officials within. Because the firing angles from above were obstructed by the massive overhang, and the Frontline Elites' crossbow magazines were finally tapping dry, the relentless rain of steel finally began to sputter and thin. Aside from the howling wind, the freezing rain, and the faint, gurgling moans of the dying, the entire ravine plunged into a deeply chilling stalemate.

"My Lord, our magazines are tapped dry!" Gary, kneeling on the left flank, reported loudly.

"That heavy Black Steel phalanx hid in a dead angle! The crossbows can't punch through!" Commander Cedric, lying prone in the mud, also saw the situation unfold. His heart instantly sank. Clang! Clang! Clink! The few remaining armor-piercing bolts shot down from the heights merely struck the angled surfaces of the Black Steel tower shields, throwing up blinding sparks before ricocheting wildly into the muddy water, completely incapable of inflicting lethal damage.

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"Dammit! They found a blind spot!" Cedric lowered his voice, anxiously reporting to Soren.

"Lord Soren, those Black Steel Orcs have locked themselves into an orthodox fortress phalanx!

"Without heavy siege engines like large trebuchets to shatter their frontline, mere crossbows will never punch through a fully enclosed defense like that!" Cedric's tactical assessment was undeniably sharp. In traditional, orthodox warfare, once heavy infantry backed into a dead angle and formed an airtight shield wall, the attacking force was usually forced to either pay a catastrophic toll in blood to storm it manually, or settle in for a multi-day siege to starve them out.

However, Soren completely ignored Cedric's panic.

"Stow the crossbows! Draw melee weapons!" Soren parted his lips, blowing a short, piercing whistle. Clatter! Moving with terrifying synchronization, the seventy Frontline Elites lying in the muck instantly hooked their heavy repeating crossbows onto the magnetic latches at their lower backs. In the same breath, they drew their two-and-a-half-meter armor-piercing heavy halberds.

Soren's tactical doctrine—born directly from modern Earth's Special Forces combined-arms strategies—would absolutely not permit even a half-second vacuum in firepower, nor tolerate a single ounce of hesitation!

"I don't need a trebuchet." Soren coldly drew the refined steel military longsword from his waist. Pointing the blade directly at the steep slope plunging down to the enemy position barely thirty meters away, he issued his command.

"All units! Three-man bounding overwatch! Advance to the danger-close bombardment line!" The seventy towering elites clad in pitch-black heavy armor surged forward. Operating in triangular three-man fireteams—one man securing the front while two provided covering angles from the rear—they silently vaulted out of their elevated cover, radiating pure killing intent.

Stomping through the slick, treacherous mud, they executed a rapid, perfectly stabilized descent down the steep incline, halting less than ten paces from the Orcs' turtle formation! Thirty meters! This was a dangerously intimate distance where, if the Orcs suddenly threw off their shields to launch a counter-charge, it would only take seconds for the two sides to clash in brutal, hand-to-hand combat!

But it was also a perfectly calibrated, point-blank kill zone where a Mage could maximize their elemental destructive power!

"Victor." Soren didn't even turn his head. He casually dragged his sword through the mud, drawing a physical line in the dirt to mark the absolute boundary for artillery coverage.

"Burn their shield phalanx to the ground. And take that damn rock out with it."

"As you wish, my Lord." The Silver-tier Mage Victor, who had been securely shielded in the center of the formation, calmly stepped up to the frontline. At this exact moment, his mana pool was surging at a critical mass. A terrifying, crimson light bled into his eyes, and his pristine robes billowed violently despite the lack of wind. His [Double Mana] talent flared to its absolute maximum capacity! Victor hoisted his staff with both hands.

The arcane incantations flowing from his lips shifted from low, rhythmic whispers to a rapid, piercing, almost hysterical roar:"Combustible blood lying dormant within the deepest abyss of the earth! Heed the call of the pact! [Purgatory Hellwave]!" Hum! The ambient temperature spiked so violently that the falling raindrops were flash-evaporated into white steam mid-air!

At a point-blank range of thirty meters, five violently churning spheres of liquid magma tore through the air, trailing blindingly bright tails as they shrieked toward the sheltered rock overhang! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The earth heaved! The deafening explosions blew away entire layers of soil. The massive boulder sheltering the Orcs from the arrow rain underwent catastrophic thermal shock from the intense, rapid alternating temperatures of the magical bombardment.

Its internal structure instantly collapsed, violently exploding into a sky-filling cloud of razor-sharp stone shrapnel!

"Ah! What's happening?!"

"Spells! It's high-tier magical bombardment! Fall back!" However, the Orcs had absolutely nowhere left to retreat. The saturated magical explosions didn't just obliterate their physical cover; the highly compressed, concussive shockwaves of pure fire poured directly into the enclosed space of their supposedly impregnable turtle formation. Cedric and Leona pressed themselves flat against the mud in sheer awe, the scorching heatwaves frantically roasting their cheeks.

[Black Steel Heavy Armor] was indeed phenomenal at deflecting swords, blunt-force trauma, and even heavy crossbow bolts. Metal, however, is a flawless conductor of heat! Trapped inside their armor amidst a multi-thousand-degree epicenter, the elite Orc guards were essentially sealed inside roaring ovens, suffering instantaneous, catastrophic burns!

"Rooaaarrgghhh!" Bloodcurdling screams erupted from the sea of fire. The ironclad defensive array instantly disintegrated. One by one, Orcs encased in red-hot, glowing iron armor threw themselves into the mud, rolling around in a frenzy of agony. The Black Iron Orcs trapped in the inner circle had their internal organs completely pulverized by the concussive force. Over half of the one hundred vaunted [Black Steel Orc Elites] were flash-cooked alive in a single round of saturated elemental bombardment!

The remaining forty or fifty Black Steel Orcs caught on the outer fringes of the blast barely managed to shove aside the smoking corpses of their comrades, crawling out of the inferno with their bodies scorched pitch-black. Thick, choking cordite, the sickening stench of charred flesh, and the perpetually dense fog rapidly coalesced, forming a towering, natural barrier that completely obscured all vision.