Chương 191: 191：Truth Bought with Blood

Hearing this completely unrestrained death sentence, the Governor-General's nephew's eyes lost all focus. Sheer terror caused his body to violently convulse. Soren knew perfectly well that to pry open the mouth of a pampered aristocrat like this, he first had to utterly shatter every last delusion of hope in the target's mind, plunging him into the abyss of a complete psychological breakdown, before offering the faintest, microscopic glimmer of survival.

"However..." Soren released his grip on the Orc's hair. Standing up, he accepted a short blade handed to him by one of his elites, casually tossing and catching it in his hand.

"There is a difference between a comfortable death and an agonizing one." Soren paused, his gaze glacial.

"If you can provide me with some... interesting intelligence before you die—or rather, before you are decapitated—I might... consider bending the rules of Greywater Village just a little." For the Governor-General's nephew, whose cowardice and fear of death had already stripped him of all rational thought, those words represented the ultimate lifeline. The carnage littered across the ground had long since evaporated his sanity.

For that fleeting, ephemeral chance at survival, he instantly and completely betrayed the Orcish Alliance he had once been so proud of.

"I'll talk! I'll tell you everything! Our march route! Our destination!" he shrieked hysterically, terrified that hesitating for even half a second would cost him his head.

"The original destination for our inspection delegation was the closest outpost to your human Boulder Fortress—[Bloodhorn Fortress]!

"It is our absolute frontline vanguard for the invasion of the Holy Halycon Empire's borders!

"To prepare for the arrival of the provincial high command, the quartermaster of Bloodhorn Fortress wanted to kiss my uncle's ass! Half a month ago, he plundered the assets of over a dozen surrounding villages. In the cellars beneath the fortress, they have stockpiled mountains of strategic supplies!

"There are over a hundred thousand pounds of dehydrated, winter-baked premium sorghum, massive crates of low-tier health potions, and even tons of raw black iron ingots meant for forging Kodo Beast armor!

"It's all there! If you go, you can claim unimaginable wealth!" Hearing this intelligence, Chief Mage Victor, standing in the rear, widened his eyes, his gaze burning with intense desire. For Greywater Village—a settlement currently surviving on half-cooked Swamp Tubers in a muddy wasteland—this was an incredibly high-value logistical goldmine! Yet, Soren's expression remained as completely unreadable as ever, a faint flicker of impatience flashing in the depths of his eyes.

Supplies were important, yes, but they absolutely did not justify such a massive, frantic mobilization of the Orcish main army.

"If you just wanted to eat, drink, and play at war, you could have stayed in the Governor-General's estate in the southern provinces." Soren casually drove the short blade into the mud.

"It seems your life is only worth a few tons of sorghum. That's not nearly enough to buy your head."

"There's more! Top secret!" Seeing the halberdiers on both flanks taking a menacing step closer, the Governor-General's nephew was pushed right past the brink of collapse. Desperate to add weight to his pitiful bargaining chips, he tore his throat raw, spilling the absolute core secret of the Orcish Alliance's southern invasion.

"We are only here to observe! Warchief Blackstone promised to execute an operation right before our eyes that would shock the entire continent!

"The Shadow Priest, Zagar... that damned lunatic! He's commanding those eight monsters bred exclusively for slaughter—the [Sons of Titan]! Using the mobilization of tens of thousands of troops as a smokescreen, they've already moved out!

"Their objective is to completely bypass the outer walls of Boulder Fortress and execute a decapitation strike on the supreme commander of the human northern frontier, Grand Duke Valentine!

"It's happening within the next two days! They are going to assassinate Valentine in his sleep!" The moment those words dropped, a profound, bone-deep chill gripped everyone present—from the concealed Greywater commanders to the three observing officers. Grand Duke Valentine! The absolute linchpin of the Holy Halycon Empire's northern defensive line! If anyone else claimed to be attempting his assassination, they would have treated it as a sick joke.

But the Shadow Priest Zagar, backed by eight Sons of Titan—monsters capable of ignoring heavy pike fire to shatter the gates of Ironwood Fortress—that kill squad absolutely possessed the capability to execute a surgical decapitation! In a flash, the grand tactical enigma was completely unraveled.

"So that's how it is..." Soren murmured softly. He finally understood. He understood why Warchief Blackstone, a commander notorious for his deep, cautious tactical doctrines, had suddenly acted completely out of character. Why he had recklessly drafted tens of thousands of Orc elites from major outposts just to push them against the heavily fortified, artillery-bristling walls of Boulder Fortress! It was never about a siege! It was purely a grand smokescreen to cover Zagar's infiltration!

The dust kicked up by forty thousand marching troops was designed exclusively to draw all of Valentine's attention, allowing a micro-squad of assassins to slip silently right up to the Grand Duke's bedside. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Once Grand Duke Valentine, the supreme commander, fell, the supposedly impregnable command and control network of Boulder Fortress would instantly plunge into total paralysis.

At that exact moment, the tens of thousands of Orcs massed outside could seamlessly transition from a feint into an all-out, apocalyptic offensive, shattering the Empire's northern defensive line in one fell swoop! That old fox orchestrated a conspiracy of staggering scale. If I hadn't forced you to spill your guts today by pure chance, the entire human northern frontier would likely be facing utter annihilation. Soren took a deep breath, firmly etching this intelligence into his mind.

He had secured enough information, and its strategic value had far exceeded his wildest expectations.

"I'm done... I've confessed everything... My Lord... Noble Human Master... You said... you might bend the rules?" The half-dead nephew of the Governor-General slumped weakly in the mud. He raised his head, squeezing out a painfully hopeful, sickeningly submissive, and groveling smile on his mud-caked face—a smile far uglier than weeping. Soren looked down at him. Slowly drawing the short blade from the dirt, he spoke with glacial deliberation.

"It is indeed highly valuable intelligence. But I just thought about it carefully... the rules of Greywater Village were forged with the blood of my soldiers." Under the Orc's utterly stunned, rapidly collapsing gaze, Soren's expression turned merciless as he delivered his absolute, tyrannical decree:"Today, even if the Supreme Governor-General of the Blood Province himself stood here begging me on his knees... I would still sever your head from your shoulders!"

"You... you have no hon—" Squelch! Before the shrill, agonizing curse could even leave his throat, Soren didn't even need to flash a hand signal. The seventy elites forming the perimeter simultaneously and flawlessly twisted their wrists. Dozens of armor-piercing heavy halberds violently thrusted forward in the exact same microsecond. A dense, sickening chorus of rending flesh echoed through the ravine.

The Governor-General's nephew's throat and chest were instantly punctured by countless bloody holes, the sheer kinetic force bodily lifting him straight off the ground. The remaining, shivering high-ranking Orc officers met the exact same fate in the perfectly synchronized execution, their necks instantly impaled by heavy halberds. Those once-haughty heads and luxurious pelts all tumbled into the filthy sludge, left to the mercy of the freezing rain.

As the final corpses crashed heavily into the mire, the surgical ambush within Soul-Sever Gorge was officially declared over. It was a glorious, monumental victory—one worthy of being etched in heavy ink across the annals of any military history. Under Soren's layered, progressively escalating suppressive firepower, this elite Orc detachment had been entirely annihilated.

In this single campaign, Greywater Village had executed over a dozen core, high-ranking Orc officers, including the overwhelmingly authoritative Province Oracle and the biological nephew of the Blood Province Governor-General! The outer perimeter of three hundred Black Iron Orc heavy infantry had been completely wiped out, crushed beneath the weight of repeating crossbows and halberd phalanxes.

As for the hundred [Black Steel Orc Elites] possessing explosive combat power—those who weren't flash-cooked by elemental magic were hamstrung by throwing knives and butchered by halberds. Most terrifying of all, in the four hundred and fifty years since the establishment of the human border defensive lines, an annihilation operation targeting this echelon of enemy commanders was virtually unprecedented. And achieving this staggering result was a micro-force of less than a hundred men.

Greywater Village's only losses were a few hundred expended crossbow bolts and the mana crystals burned by Victor. Of the seventy frontline elites, there were zero fatalities. There wasn't even a single severe injury! Standing on the elevated periphery, Leona, Elena, and Commander Cedric had witnessed this inconceivable combat record in its entirety. At this moment, their hearts were reeling from a profound, earth-shattering shock that refused to settle.

Even Leona—the notoriously brash, unrestrained female Commander of the Crimson Moon Knights—found her throat completely dry. Leaning heavily on her massive greatsword, her chest heaved violently as she watched the Greywater soldiers below systematically and meticulously harvest the enemy heads and gather the pristine Black Steel armaments.

Her admiration for Soren's seamless integration of multi-branch synergy, environmental exploitation, and psychological warfare had completely transcended the boundaries of language. If Leona and Elena, having previously witnessed Soren forge miracles, could barely maintain their composure, then Cedric—the supreme military commander of the Ironpeak Duchy—had been utterly and completely humbled.

This fiercely proud veteran, who had dedicated his entire life to studying traditional heavy infantry formations, was currently losing his military bearing. He didn't even look at the corpse-strewn battlefield. Instead, he covered his face with both hands and let out a long, heavy sigh—a sigh overflowing with both profound shame and absolute, boundless reverence.