Chương 192: 192：A Madman's Gamble

If those were my troops just now... if I had been the one commanding... Cedric's eyes were bloodshot. Deep down, he was forced to agonize over a brutal, undeniable reality: Even if he were to pull two thousand of the Ironpeak Duchy's most elite heavy greatswordsmen into this narrow, muddy ravine to face that phalanx of three hundred Black Iron and a hundred Black Steel Orcs... the absolute best outcome would be a meat-grinder of a melee, resulting in catastrophic casualties.

Merely avoiding total annihilation by a Black Steel counter-charge would be a blessing. It would be fundamentally impossible to replicate what Soren had just done—executing a flawless, zero-casualty annihilation in under half an hour! As Soren trudged through the mud and dark green blood, returning to their elevated position, Cedric abruptly stood up. Completely ignoring the filth coating his hands, the veteran commander offered Soren a profound, deeply respectful bow.

Having steadied her breathing, the Military Priestess Elena stepped forward. Wiping the cold sweat from her forehead with her pristine white sleeve, her pale golden eyes brimmed with profound suspicion.

"Vice-Commander Soren, utilizing an escort of such an exorbitant, airtight caliber... what exactly were these high-ranking Orc generals marching out here to do?" Leona and Cedric simultaneously cast him bewildered glances. They, too, were completely incapable of comprehending the Orcs' absurd, highly illogical march route. Met with their piercing questions, Soren sheathed his blade.

Standing tall against the biting, freezing wind of the swamp, he meticulously relayed the top-secret intelligence he had just squeezed from the Governor-General's nephew.

"They were a high-ranking inspection delegation sent by the Blood Province to pressure the frontlines."

"Their destination was never just a casual tour. They were rushing to the absolute frontline—to an outpost named Bloodhorn Fortress—to observe a long-premeditated operation..." Soren systematically laid out the puzzle pieces: the Shadow Priest Zagar, the eight Sons of Titan, the decapitation strike targeting Grand Duke Valentine, and the tens of thousands of Orcs massing for a grand feint.

As seasoned high-ranking officers who had spent their lives navigating the treacherous waters of human military politics, their expressions violently shifted from confusion, to sheer shock, and finally, to a bone-chilling, deathly pallor!

"This... this is truly..." Cedric gasped, the cold sweat beading on his forehead mingling with the freezing rain. Leona broke into a full-body sweat. She knew all too well exactly what it would mean for the entire human race if the supreme commander guarding the northern gates was decapitated in his sleep. It meant that within a mere half-month, no less than several Duchies and Kingdoms would be mercilessly razed to the ground beneath the iron hooves of the Orc horde.

When the three of them finally managed to pull themselves out from the shadow of this apocalyptic conspiracy, their perception of Soren completely transcended the mere boundaries of a "tactical genius." Relying on a fragmented piece of intelligence without even a confirmed march route, he had led a few dozen men to completely annihilate the enemy's high command. Furthermore, he had used that absolute victory to ruthlessly rip the veil off a conspiracy capable of plunging the entire human race into the abyss!

Such an utterly terrifying capacity for battlefield intelligence extraction forged an undeniable, absolute reverence for the man standing before them.

"Order the men to sweep the battlefield." Soren didn't give them much time to wallow in their shock. He turned his head, gazing into the distance toward the direction of Bloodhorn Fortress, his mind already calculating his impending spoils.

"The armor on those flash-cooked Black Steel Orcs can still be melted down and reforged. Have the rear guard transport all of it back to Greywater Village!"

"And don't leave a single scrap of Black Iron behind, either." Soren casually brushed the mud from his gauntlets.

"As for right now, send the signal flare. Notify all surrounding harassment detachments to rally on our position!"

"It's time to get down to business. I want to see exactly what kind of wealth the quartermaster of Bloodhorn Fortress has stockpiled for us!"

"This is merely the beginning." Those few, understated words struck Leona, Cedric, and Elena like a physical blow. An unprecedented, flawless victory that annihilated hundreds of Orcish elites and over a dozen high-ranking provincial officials... and to this Warlord of Greywater Village, it was nothing but the start of his operational plan?! Soren turned toward the Greywater elites currently sweeping the battlefield. His right hand snapped up, executing a crisp, absolute tactical hand signal.

"Gary! Front and center!"

"Here, my Lord!" A lean, agile man smoothly slid out from the ranks. It was Greywater Village's Chief Trap Master, Gary. Soren's gaze burned like a torch. He pointed at the narrow, winding mountain pass and the mountains of Orc corpses littering the mud.

"I'm giving you thirty minutes. I want the rock crevices on both flanks, the rotting leaf piles, and the ground directly beneath every single one of these high-ranking Orc corpses rigged to the brim with lethal traps."

"Utilize every last drop of Alchemical Fire Oil, pressure-plate triggers, and chain-tripwires we have left."

"Remember this: focus heavily on the corpse of the Governor-General's nephew. Hide the mechanisms flawlessly. The moment anyone attempts to move his body, I want them to pay the ultimate price in blood!" Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"Understood! I guarantee that even the slightest, microscopic touch will trigger a catastrophic detonation!" Gary bared his teeth, a highly professional, entirely unhinged grin spreading across his face. He immediately spun around, gesturing for several dozen soldiers to haul over the barrels of Alchemical Fire Oil. Moving with practiced, terrifying efficiency, they began lacing the corpses with deadly mechanical triggers.

The combat engineers ruthlessly shoved canisters of Fire Oil straight into the cleaved chest plates of the Black Steel Orcs, linking the detonation pins together with micro-thin swamp-spider silk. Watching this macabre process unfold, absolute horror washed over the faces of Leona and Cedric.

"Lord Soren... are you actually..." Cedric, the undisputed commander of the Ironpeak Duchy's most elite heavy infantry, found his voice trembling uncontrollably.

"Are you genuinely intending to set up a second ambush inside this exact same ravine?!"

"This is pure madness! This is an utterly irrational, suicidal gamble!"

"I concede that your previous tactics were strokes of divine genius. But the moment Orc reinforcements realize this critical inspection delegation is under attack, the forces they dispatch will be an enraged, heavily fortified main army!"

"They will deploy an exhaustive dragnet of scouts! They will hoist their tower shields and advance inch by agonizing inch!"

"You cannot execute the exact same ambush twice against an enemy that is already on high alert!" Within the bounds of Cedric's traditional, orthodox military education, attempting to spring a trap twice in the exact same location was tantamount to digging your own grave. Faced with Cedric's frantic interrogation, Soren showed no anger. He simply bent down, plucking a shattered, bloodstained Orcish war banner from the muck, and slammed the base of the pole heavily against the bedrock.

"Commander Cedric, you severely overestimate the tactical literacy of an Orcish commander, and you critically underestimate the fatal toxicity of cognitive inertia." Soren released the banner. Staring straight ahead at the corpse-strewn battlefield, his voice carried an aura of absolute, unshakeable confidence.

"Whenever human armies are confronted by the crushing physical superiority and endless numbers of the Orcs, our standard operating procedure has always been hit-and-run harassment. Strike hard, grab an advantage, and immediately retreat."

"We aren't the only ones who think this way. This 'common sense' is etched deep into the very marrow of the Orcs! In their minds, the moment frail humans successfully execute an ambush, we are virtually guaranteed to scatter in blind panic to avoid being encircled." Soren turned around, pointing down at the corpses currently being wired into high-explosive payloads.

"When enemy reinforcements arrive and see this ravine completely blanketed with the corpses of their highest commanding officers... their first instinct will not be to raise their shields in defense.

"They will be gripped by sheer, unadulterated terror. They will blindly rush forward to check if the Governor-General's nephew still draws breath, desperate to salvage any excuse to avoid Warchief Blackstone's wrath!"

"The exact microsecond their attention is wholly consumed by these corpses, and their formation shatters in a frantic rush to the center... that is the exact moment we harvest their lives!" Listening to this meticulous, flawless deconstruction of battlefield psychology, Cedric's lips trembled slightly. He found himself completely and utterly incapable of formulating a single word of rebuttal. He turned to look at Leona.

Both veteran commanders saw the exact same profound, unshakeable awe reflected in each other's eyes. Weaponizing the deeply ingrained "common sense" of their racial wars to invert the board and strike directly at the enemy's psychological blind spots! Such unorthodox tactical brilliance was simply awe-inspiring!

"However, my Lord, there is a fatal flaw in your plan." The Military Priestess, Elena, stepped forward. Her pale golden eyes shimmered with sharp intelligence. Beneath the hood of her pristine robes, her breathtaking features were locked into an expression of absolute gravity.

"Your movements were far too fast. Your slaughter, far too decisive."

"They didn't even have the time to release a single spark of a magical distress signal."

"In this vast, boundless wilderness eternally shrouded in toxic miasma... how would the Orcs at Bloodhorn Fortress even know an attack occurred here?"

"If we simply sit here in this corpse-filled ravine and wait... wait for the Bloodhorn garrison to finally notice the inspection delegation is overdue and send out a search party..."

"The time cost is far too severe. Our soldiers will lose their combat effectiveness in this freezing rain. They might even be entirely worn down before the enemy arrives." Elena's skepticism drew blood in a single thrust, piercing straight to the absolute core of the issue. Leona and Cedric instantly realized it as well, their brows locking into deep frowns as they turned back to Soren. Freezing rain ran down Soren's cold, chiseled face.

He slightly raised his head, a ruthless, predatory glint surfacing in his eyes. Faced with Elena's incisive question of "how will the Orcs even know to come," he casually unveiled the next layer of his grand design.

"If they don't know something happened here... then we'll simply be generous enough to deliver the intelligence right to their doorstep, and personally direct their movements."