Chương 193: 193：Luring the Tiger from the Mountain

Taking in their dumbfounded expressions, Soren turned his gaze toward the distant, encroaching night.

"I will personally go and deliver the report."

"What?!" The three veteran commanders, who had seen countless life-and-death struggles, simultaneously broke their composure in shocked unison.

"I will disguise myself as a surviving Half-Orc slave guard from the ambush and head to Bloodhorn Fortress to call for reinforcements." Soren's eyes gleamed with a predatory light.

"The moment the Bloodhorn commander learns that the provincial high officials and the Governor-General's own nephew—the very VIPs he's been desperately trying to kiss up to—have been ambushed less than ten miles from his gates and are currently fighting for their lives, he will completely panic!

"Terrified of being beheaded for dereliction of duty, he will instantly draft every single combat-ready elite inside that fortress and dispatch them at maximum speed to reinforce this ravine.

"And when that happens, a frenzied, utterly irrational Orc army will dive headfirst straight into my secondary trap zone." Soren violently clenched his fist.

"This also means that, in their desperate rush to save the VIPs, the interior of Bloodhorn Fortress will instantly be drained of its forces!

"And that cellar—the one stockpiled with a hundred thousand pounds of premium sorghum and tons of raw black iron ingots meant for the inspection delegation—will become an entirely unguarded vault, ripe for Greywater Village to take over!

"I don't just want a total annihilation in the field. I want to uproot Bloodhorn Fortress's home base along with them!" Hiss! Amidst the howling wind of the ravine, the only sound was the heavy, collective gasp of Leona, Cedric, and Elena. Luring the tiger from the mountain. Besieging the corpses to strike the reinforcements. Reverse-infiltration. Pulling the firewood from beneath the cauldron!

One interlocking stratagem after another, calculating the enemy's psychology, troop deployments, and logistical stockpiles down to the absolute microscopic limit!

"You are a complete and utter madman, and an absolute genius," Leona breathed, drawing in a sharp lungful of cold air. Her crimson eyes burned with raw excitement.

"Entire army, hear my command! Rapidly sweep the battlefield!" Wasting no more breath, Soren immediately began preparing for his infiltration. Greywater Village's frontline elites, having stripped the corpses of all valuable ordnance, immediately used the dense fog as cover to retreat to the flanking ridges. They concealed themselves seamlessly, systematically erasing every trace of their march route in the mud.

Soren, however, stood behind a jagged boulder and reached up to unbuckle his full-plate black iron heavy armor. He stripped a torn, mud-caked leather tunic from the corpse of a dead Half-Orc slave guard and pulled it over his own body. He then threw himself into the muddy water, rolling in the sludge to completely mask any lingering human scent.

"My Lord..." The throwing-knife master, Lyra, who had been hiding nearby, revealed her form. Her silver hair clung to her cheeks in the freezing rain, her face written with profound worry. Penetrating the deepest rear-guard fortress of the enemy completely alone... if he were exposed, even with his Grandmaster-tier swordsmanship, Soren would be slowly, brutally ground to death by sheer Orcish numbers.

"I won't die. Don't forget, in the eyes of Orcs, my facial features and physique are already hard to distinguish from a Half-Orc." Soren forcibly pried the signet ring bearing the Governor-General's family crest from the dead nephew's hand, clenching it tightly in his palm. But it wasn't enough. As a former Special Forces operative, Soren knew all too well that a flawless disguise required a price in blood. Gripping a dagger in a reverse hold with his right hand, he didn't hesitate for a microsecond.

Aiming just below his left collarbone—meticulously avoiding any lethal arteries—he drove the blade down. Squelch! The sickening sound of biting steel echoing through the quiet ravine was absolutely jarring! Lyra slapped her hands over her mouth in sheer horror, nearly screaming out loud. In the distance, Leona and the others stared with absolute, wide-eyed disbelief. Soren had actually driven the dagger completely through his own shoulder!

The wound was bone-deep, his hot blood rapidly dying the torn leather tunic a vibrant crimson. He was executing a brutally authentic self-mutilation stratagem!

"Only a body covered in gruesome, agonizingly real wounds can convince a paranoid enemy that the inspection delegation has truly met with disaster." Pea-sized beads of cold sweat instantly erupted across Soren's forehead. Biting down hard on the excruciating pain, he let out a muffled grunt and violently yanked the dagger out. The flesh around the wound curled outward, looking absolutely horrifying.

He didn't use a single drop of coagulant, allowing his blood to thoroughly soak half his body before vaulting onto the back of a Swamp Direwolf. Suppressed by the faint, dominant aura of his [Blood of the Titan], the ferocious Direwolf let out a whimpering whine, submissively lowering its body.

"Execute according to the plan! Without my signal, absolutely no one moves!" With those final words, Soren kicked his heels into the wolf's flanks. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Amidst the torrential rain and pitch-black night, this scarred, blood-soaked "Half-Orc deserter" rode like a madman, sprinting straight toward the heavily guarded Bloodhorn Fortress.

Less than ten miles from the chained-ambush site, Bloodhorn Fortress stood imposing and grim atop an elevated slope in the darkness. Its outer perimeter bristled with sharpened log chevaux de frise. Atop a dozen watchtowers burning with grease-fueled braziers, Orc sentries idly gnawed on sun-dried human femurs. To welcome the provincial VIPs, the exterior had actually been somewhat cleaned up.

"Who goes there?!" Suddenly, an Orc atop a watchtower blew a shrill warning horn. Through the flickering firelight caught in the wind, they spotted a mud-caked Direwolf stumbling frantically out of the dense southern forest. And slumped over its back was a blood-drenched Half-Orc who looked as if he could draw his last breath at any second.

"S... Save me..."

"Enemy attack! On guard! Shoot him down!" A sentry drew back his massive heavy bow. Just a microsecond before the heavy arrow left the string, the rider violently pulled a gemstone ring from his coat, raising it high. The ruby erupted with a blinding red glare. Utilizing a flawless, heavily accented Orcish dialect native to the Bloodfang Tribe, he tore his throat in a bloodcurdling, hysterical roar:"Are you blind, you filthy mutts?! I am the chief slave-guide for the Provincial Inspection Delegation!

"The delegation has been ambushed by humans in Soul-Sever Gorge!

"Young Master Mogg, the Governor-General's own nephew, is pinned down by humans! Open the gates! Save Young Master Mogg! Or the Overseer Corps will flay your entire clan alive!!" This earth-shattering revelation, delivered in absolutely flawless, vulgar native Orcish, sent an instant wave of sheer terror crashing through the guards on the wall! Less than a moment later, the refined-iron fortress gates groaned and boomed open. Soren, wolf and all, collapsed heavily into the muddy courtyard of the fortress.

A dozen towering Orcs wielding battleaxes instantly swarmed around him. From the center of the crowd strode the Orc Commander of Bloodhorn Fortress, clad in heavy plate armor. His eyes were practically bulging out of his skull. He grabbed Soren by the collar of his torn leather tunic, lifting the heavily wounded "Half-Orc" bodily into the air. Panic laced his frantic roar:"What the hell did you just say?! Young Master Mogg was attacked?!

"He is the Governor-General's own nephew! How did you useless trash protect him?!"

"R-report... Commander, sir..." Soren's face was deathly pale. He gasped heavily for air, his hand violently trembling as he offered up the bloodstained signet ring. His eyes perfectly mirrored the sheer, unadulterated terror of a man who had barely escaped death.

"It was those damned humans from the Crimson Moon Knights! They set an ambush... swarms of heavy repeating crossbows! The Province Oracle was killed in the very first volley!

"The guard suffered catastrophic casualties! Young Master Mogg is pinned behind a massive boulder in the ravine and can't get out! He shoved this ring into my hand and ordered me to break through the encirclement at all costs!

"If you are too late, Young Master Mogg is a dead man!!" The Commander snatched the ring from his hand. The faceted ruby, backed by the engraved crest of a bleeding battleaxe—the absolute symbol of the Blood Province's highest authority. The residual body heat and fresh blood clinging to the metal couldn't be faked! He looked back down at the Half-Orc before him. The bone-deep blade wound, the ruptured veins, and those unfocused pupils indicative of severe blood loss.

This level of horrific trauma could only be sustained in the most desperate, life-and-death crucible of a battlefield! If this was a human spy, it was absolutely impossible for them to inflict such a ruthless, suicidal level of self-mutilation! The Bloodhorn Commander, possessing the characteristically simple, linear thought process of an Orc, was entirely consumed by the overwhelming terror of decapitation. Faced with this mountain of ironclad evidence, he didn't doubt the story for a single second.

"Dammit! Damned human filth! If Young Master Mogg dies right outside my defensive sector, Warchief Blackstone will roast me on a spit for three months!" The Commander swung his spiked mace like a madman, roaring his orders:"Sound the war assembly horns!

"Everyone! I mean every single last soldier, except for the grunts operating the gate mechanisms!

"Draft the entire garrison of five hundred Black Iron elites! Mount up the assault boars!

"We are going to crush that ravine! Chop those ambushing humans into bloody pulp!" Following the Commander's frantic deployment, the interior of Bloodhorn Fortress instantly erupted into chaos. Five hundred towering, heavily armed Orcs roared as they assembled. As the gates, weighing thousands of pounds, groaned open once more, this heavily equipped, bloodthirsty Orc vanguard surged out in full force. Like a raging torrent, they charged blindly toward the inescapable net Soren had woven for them in the ravine!

And the massive interior of Bloodhorn Fortress was instantly emptied. All that remained were less than thirty elderly, crippled Orcs manning the winch arrays, alongside a few slumbering Kodo Beasts.