Chương 195: 195： Nowhere to Hide

The leading Orc soldier squatted down, sliding his hands under the armpits of the Governor-General's nephew's corpse. He yanked upward with immense force, attempting to hoist the hefty body onto his shoulder. Snick! Click! In this ravine, where the only sound was the falling rain, the microscopic click of a metal spring engaging abruptly rang out.

The source of that sound had been ingeniously hidden by Gary inside the heavy armor of the corpse, connected by an extraordinarily thin strand of Swamp Poison-Spider silk. At the other end of the silk, several flint strikers were pulled taut, positioned directly over several wide-bellied iron canisters half-buried beneath the layer of rotting leaves. The exact microsecond the Orc lifted the corpse more than half a foot off the ground, the spider silk snapped.

"What was that sou—" The Orc soldier looked down in confusion, but before he could finish his sentence... Hiding behind the rock wall above, the Trap Master, Gary, bared his teeth in a vicious grin and violently slashed his red flag downward. BOOM! In a fraction of a second, a catastrophic explosion detonated directly in the center of the small ravine! A tyrannical, bright-orange fireball erupted with an earth-shattering roar, instantly swallowing the Orc soldiers attempting to move the corpse.

The Alchemical Fire Oil that Soren had specifically ordered Gary to leave behind was detonated by this concealed mechanical trigger! The violent shockwave displayed apocalyptic destructive force. Mud, severed limbs, and even multi-hundred-pound Orcs within a thirty-meter radius were blasted helplessly over ten meters into the air. The highly adhesive Alchemical Fire rained down upon the densely packed Orc formation, utterly impossible to extinguish.

"Arghhh! My eyes! The fire! The water won't put it out!!" Orcs completely drenched in flaming oil wailed miserably, rolling frantically in the muddy swamp. Yet, before this terrifying incendiary weapon, it was entirely futile. They could only lie there, wide-eyed, smelling the sickening stench of their own roasting flesh.

"Ambush! Enemy attack!" Karlok was thrown back several paces by the shockwave, barely managing to stabilize his footing in the mud as a high-pitched ringing echoed in his ears. And this earth-shattering chain-detonation was the absolute, undeniable signal marking the official commencement of the second ambush!

"Crossbow Battalion! Indiscriminate suppressive fire! Loose!" Gary roared, slashing his arm downward. Thwack! Thwack! The explosive twang of heavy bowstrings echoed across the cliffs on both sides of the ravine. Greywater Village's frontline elites squeezed the triggers of their heavy repeating crossbows. The Black Iron Orc battalion, still reeling in panicked confusion from the explosion and desperately trying to reform their ranks, was subjected to a torrential, omni-directional bombardment.

The heavy bodkins effortlessly tore through their black iron breastplates, viciously shredding their internal organs. Swaths of towering bodies collapsed in droves. Even if they didn't die on the spot, the moment they hit the mud and attempted to struggle back to their feet, they were met with a second, merciless penetrating bolt. In the span of just three breaths during the first volley, over a hundred completely unguarded Black Iron Orcs were slaughtered!

Immediately following, a magical incantation concluded atop the ridge.

"[Gale-Fire Tornado]!" The staff in Chief Mage Victor's hands erupted with blinding brilliance. A magic circle unfolded beneath his feet. Two opposing yet harmonizing elemental forces were forcibly woven together, transforming into a violent, raging tornado of fire that swept across the bottom of the ravine. Fueled by the gale, the inferno tore down the narrow pass. The assault boars, completely terrified by the raging fire, finally lost all control. Squeal! Snort!

These iron-plated beasts, usually deployed as line-breaking weapons, now had bloodshot eyes. Turning their razor-sharp tusks entirely on their masters, completely unable to distinguish friend from foe, they violently plowed into the Orc ranks. The multi-thousand-pound weight of the beasts, combined with the momentum of their frenzied stampede, trampled countless Orc soldiers who tried to stop them into bloody pulp. It was a devastation even more catastrophic than the crossbow bolts!

From the branches of the dense forest on the flank, several streaks of silver flashed silently. Squelch! Squelch! Lyra's throwing knives, imbued with faint wind magic, struck at unbelievably impossible angles, severing the hind-leg tendons of several assault boars attempting to charge up the slope. The boars let out agonizing shrieks and crashed heavily into the mud, rolling and tripping up massive swaths of Orc infantry. Yet, the Orcs were ultimately the most ferocious warrior race of the Blood Province.

Despite the chain of devastating blows at the vanguard, a contingent of veteran Black Iron Orcs positioned in the middle and rear displayed the terrifyingly resilient caliber of true elites. Battalion Commander Karlok roughly wiped the splattered gore from his face. He violently hurled his throwing axe. CRACK! The heavy blade cleaved the skull of a maddened assault boar charging right at him perfectly in two.

"Hold the line! No one breaks formation! Do not stand in the open and let them shoot you!" This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Karlok roared himself hoarse, commanding the remnants of his forces:"Scatter the formation! Find cover! Get behind the rocks and gullies on both sides of the pass! Raise your tower shields to block the crossbow volley!

"Wait for a gap in the Mage's spells, then counter-charge!" Hearing their commander's orders, the panicking Orcs finally found a glimmer of hope. Unleashing physical prowess far exceeding that of human soldiers, they scrambled on all fours, desperately diving and rolling toward the massive, multi-man-tall boulders lining the mountain pass. From the elevated high ground of the battlefield, Cedric watched this unfold, letting out a silent sigh of pity.

"They are elites, after all. Their reaction time is too fast. The moment they duck into the blind spots, direct-fire crossbows and linear magic attacks will lose their suppressive power.

"I'm afraid an inevitable transition into a melee meat-grinder is... W-What! What is this?!" Cedric's sigh of regret hadn't even finished before it morphed into a yelp of absolute shock! Right below his line of sight, the first batch of a dozen Black Iron Orcs, panting heavily and rejoicing that they had escaped the jaws of death, threw themselves behind the massive boulders shielding them from the arrow storm. The microsecond their heavy frames compacted the loose dirt... Clack! SNAP!

A dense chorus of snapping mechanical springs erupted from the earth directly behind the rocks. This was Gary's second trap: The Venom-Spike Pitfalls! Soren had concluded long ago that when heavily suppressed by overwhelming firepower, an infantry unit's first reaction would absolutely not be to launch a suicidal upward charge against steep, highly elevated cliffs. Nor would they stand in the middle of the road to die. Their absolute, undeniable instinct would be to seek the cover of those boulders! SQUELCH!

Meter-long, black iron spikes erupted from the earth! And they were slathered in lethal toxins! The Black Iron Orcs who had just leaned against the cover had absolutely zero room to dodge. Some had the venomous spikes pierce diagonally through the soles of their boots, blowing straight out through their thighs; others, just preparing to crouch, were viciously impaled through the groin and intestines.

Even worse, some were physically hoisted into the air, suspended behind the rock face by several long spikes at once.

"AAARRRGGGHHH!" Agonizing shrieks pierced the heavy rain. The Orcs whose blood vessels were ruptured by the venom didn't even have time to struggle. Their faces turned a sickly purple, foaming at the mouth as their limbs locked into rigid, violent convulsions.

"T-This... This is impossible..." The battleaxe slipped from Karlok's grip, plunging into the mud. He stared blankly at the gruesome massacre unfolding before him. To his left, the only remaining open mountain pass was choked with a dense barrage of heavy crossbow bolts and blinding magical wind blades. To take a single step forward meant being instantly riddled with holes.

And to his right, behind every single massive boulder that appeared to offer refuge from the arrows, rows of lethal venom-spike arrays had violently erupted! A few blinded assault boars, sprinting mindlessly in circles, crashed headlong into the spike clusters behind the cover, generating a sickening sound of tearing flesh that shattered the courage of anyone listening. Nowhere to run. No path to retreat. Terrified to advance. Impossible to defend!

At this exact moment, this veteran Black Iron Orc Battalion Commander—a man who had clawed his way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood—felt a profound, soul-crushing terror within this ravine. He raised his head. Staring through the misty downpour and the gruesome sounds of slaughter at the human troops positioned high on the slopes—troops who hadn't even fully revealed their faces yet—his heart plunged into absolute despair.

Under the three-dimensional, omni-directional fire suppression of Greywater Village's soldiers, Karlok's final surviving hundred-odd subordinates entered their death countdown. The total annihilation of this once-fearsome, five-hundred-strong Black Iron Battalion was an absolute, undisputed certainty. Meanwhile.

Deep within Bloodhorn Fortress on this rainy night, the stale stench of blood intertwined with the vile odor of medicinal dregs—boiled from poisonous weeds and animal organs—drilled straight into the nostrils. Soren lay absolutely motionless on a broken wooden cot in the corner of the barracks. A dim grease-brazier flickered in the draft, stretching the shadow of the room's only other occupant into a grotesque, terrifying silhouette. The elderly, leftover Orc Shaman hunched his back, gripping a dulled bone knife.

Bored out of his mind, he aimlessly sliced into a pile of foul-smelling animal organs. Toward the heavily wounded "deserter" who had been carelessly tossed in, the old Shaman couldn't even muster the interest for a second glance. He was merely waiting for the wretch to draw his last breath in the middle of the night, so he could drag the corpse out tomorrow to feed the Kodo Beasts in the logistics pen. However, the old Shaman completely failed to notice that Soren's eyelids were slightly parted.

His muscles were coiled, maintaining a state of absolute, explosive readiness.