Chương 196: 196：One-Man Army: Breaching the Tower

The five-hundred-strong main force outside had been successfully lured away, but as the frontline stronghold of the Blood Province, Bloodhorn Fortress's internal defensive architecture was nothing to scoff at. The moment Soren infiltrated the stronghold, his [Eagle Eye Perception] had swept the terrain, committing every inch to memory.

Aside from the towering raw-iron chevaux de frise barricading the main gates, the true, lethal threat to any breaching force lay in the two colossal watchtowers flanking the main entrance. These towers stood over a dozen meters tall, constructed from massive, interlocking boulders. Most terrifyingly, their highest levels were outfitted with heavy anti-siege ballistae capable of effortlessly punching through heavy armor.

If even a dozen crossbowmen were stationed in those towers to rain down suppressing fire, his seventy Frontline Elites would suffer catastrophic, incalculable casualties in the few minutes it would take to breach the gates! I need a lightning strike. I have to take down that left tower—it has the widest coverage and the highest lethality. The through-and-through blade wound just beneath his left collarbone throbbed with agonizing pain.

Yet, this very agony kept him preternaturally lucid, stimulating the [Minor Blood of Titan] in his veins, causing his blood to race. Soren's fingers silently probed the rotting straw mat beneath him. A few seconds later, his hand brushed against a jagged, razor-sharp shard of black iron, likely snapped off the armor of a previous Orc patient. It was enough. Rustle. The old Shaman had just set his bone knife down on the wooden table.

Turning his back to the cot, he shuffled toward a water vat in the corner to scoop up some murky water. The microsecond his back was fully turned! Soren, who had been completely motionless just a breath ago, violently erupted from the cot. A distance of mere paces! He closed the gap silently like a stalking panther. His left hand shot out, viciously clamping over the Shaman's foul-smelling maw, while his knee slammed brutally into the base of the Orc's spine, forcing his upper body to violently arch backward.

Simultaneously, his right hand drove the rusted iron shard upward, slipping it perfectly beneath the Shaman's occipital bone and plunging it directly into his medulla oblongata! Gurgle! The old Shaman's muscles convulsed violently. He didn't even have the chance to muster a single flicker of mana before his brain stem was utterly pulverized. In the blink of an eye, he collapsed into a lifeless heap of meat. Soren gently lowered the corpse to the floor without making a single sound.

Tearing a relatively clean strip of cloth from the dead Shaman's robes, he haphazardly bound the gaping, fleshy wound on his left shoulder. He then pushed open the creaky side door of the medical ward. The biting winter rain immediately lashed against his face. With the majority of the garrison dispatched to the ravine, the sprawling inner courtyard of the fortress was chillingly desolate, the puddles on the ground reflecting the weak, flickering light of the braziers.

Lowering his head and hunching his back, Soren once again slipped into the persona of a dying Half-Orc deserter. He stumbled and swayed, dragging himself toward the left watchtower looming near the main gates. At the entrance to the tower, two Black Iron Orcs gripping long spears leaned against a stone pillar, seeking shelter from the rain. They were currently cursing their comrades who had been sent out to claim all the glory.

Seeing Soren approach, one of the guards raised his spear in disgust, barking in a harsh, arrogant tone:"Piss off, you disgusting half-breed! This is a restricted defensive zone!" Soren didn't retreat. Instead, he stretched out a trembling hand, slurring a string of broken, native Orcish dialect:"H-How dare you... This was left behind... by Young Master Mogg..." This fragmented, cryptic sentence perfectly exploited the guards' deeply ingrained reverence for the high nobility.

Left behind by the Governor-General's nephew? Both Orcs subconsciously lowered their spear points. Furrowing their brows, they craned their thick necks forward, desperately trying to decipher the dying wretch's words. The distance shrank. They stepped directly into Soren's absolute kill radius. In that fleeting, microsecond window, Soren's facade of weakness vanished completely! His hands shot out like striking vipers. His left hand clamped in a vice grip around the throat of the Orc on the left.

With a sickening CRUNCH, he crushed the windpipe, instantly choking off the scream before it could even form. Simultaneously, his right hand formed a rigid knife-hand, driving with pinpoint precision straight through the carotid artery of the Orc on the right! As a geyser of hot blood erupted into the freezing rain, Soren fluidly snatched the double-bladed battleaxe hanging from the dying Orc's waist.

The two hulking corpses slumped over, but Soren expertly caught their torsos with the tips of his boots, lowering them to the ground without a single sound. Stepping over the spreading pools of blood, he melted silently into the first floor of the tower. The ground-floor armory was empty. However, from the spiraling stone staircase above, the raucous sounds of Orcs playing crude drinking games and slamming tankards echoed down the shaft.

Soren tightened his grip on the axe handle, absolute killing intent radiating from his core. The stealth phase was over. From this floor onward, there was no need for assassinations. He just needed to crush everything in his path. Carrying the unfamiliar, heavy Orcish battleaxe, Soren charged alone up the dim, spiraling staircase, initiating a brutal frontal assault. BOOM! The slightly ajar wooden door on the second floor was violently kicked off its hinges, exploding into a shower of lethal splinters!

A jagged shard of wood shot across the room like a bullet, impaling the closest Orc through the chest and pinning him dead to the floorboards. The remaining seven or eight Black Iron Orcs, who had been indulging in booze and revelry, hadn't even processed the explosive noise before a blood-soaked human stepped into the room.

"Ene—" The lead Orc barely managed to choke out a distorted syllable. Soren's wrist flicked, transforming into a blinding blur of afterimages. The massive, cumbersome battleaxe felt utterly weightless in his hands! Even though this wasn't his standard-issue military longsword, supported by the absolute foundation of his [Military Swordsmanship: Grandmaster], any edged piece of metal in his grasp became a flawless extension of his own body. Soren employed no flashy techniques.

In the confined, claustrophobic space, he simply crashed straight into their formation. SCHWING! A brutally simple, horizontal sweep of the black iron battleaxe cleaved three Orcs, who were desperately reaching for their weapons, perfectly in half! Dark green blood painted half the room, instantly transforming the second floor into a slaughterhouse.

"Kill him!" A hyper-responsive Black Iron veteran roared in fury. Lunging from a blind spot on the flank, he thrust a refined-steel short spear with all his might, aiming directly at Soren's completely unguarded right ribcage! It was a vicious, perfectly timed counterattack. Any ordinary general would have been unable to dodge. But Soren didn't even try! CLANG! A piercing screech of grinding metal detonated in the room.

The refined-steel spearhead, capable of punching through three layers of hardened bull-hide, pierced Soren's tunic—only to be halted dead by an impossibly hard barrier! Under the absolute, passive seventy-percent physical mitigation of [Hardened Skin], the lethal thrust left nothing but a shallow, white scratch across Soren's ribs! The veteran Orc's eyes bulged in absolute disbelief, his fundamental understanding of reality shattering in real-time.

Soren didn't give him a fraction of a second to question his existence. With a brutal backhand swing, the hammer-side of the battleaxe erupted with terrifying kinetic force, completely pulverizing the veteran's skull like a rotten melon. From kicking down the door to rendering the floor a carpet of mutilated corpses, barely a dozen seconds had passed.

Crushed beneath the absolute dual-suppression of apex individual combat technique and monstrous physical talents, the second-floor garrison was massacred without being able to mount a single effective counterattack. Without breaking his stride, Soren didn't even glance at the corpses. He stepped over the pooling blood and surged straight up the stairs toward the absolute summit—the third-floor defensive line! By now, the gruesome symphony of slaughter on the second floor had finally alerted the top-level guards.

From the floorboards above came chaotic, frantic roars, accompanied by the agonizing screech of thick iron chains being violently pulled through heavy pulleys.

"Drop it! Drop the portcullis! Lock down the stairwell!" An Orc Captain on the top floor shrieked in absolute panic. A colossal, raw-iron portcullis was plummeting down the guide rails at the top of the third-floor landing. Once it locked into place, breaching it from below with mere manpower would be a physical impossibility!

"Trying to shut the door? Too late!" Hitting the final turn of the stairs, Soren stomped down with such explosive force that the stone steps nearly cracked beneath his boots. Just as the iron portcullis was a fraction of a second away from slamming into the floor! Soren pushed his [Minor Blood of Titan] to its absolute limits.

Letting out a terrifying, guttural roar from deep within his chest, he hoisted the battleaxe with both hands and viciously jammed the heavy steel axe-head into the rapidly vanishing gap beneath the gate! KABOOM! The crushing, multi-ton downward force of the raw-iron portcullis slammed directly onto the steel axe-head. The veins in Soren's arms bulged like writhing snakes, his skin threatening to split open. His hastily bandaged left shoulder violently tore open again.

Hot blood soaked through his tunic, running down his leg and pooling on the stone steps. But his boot had already wedged itself into the narrow gap alongside the axe.

"He stopped the gate! Stab him! Push him back down!" The Orcs above had completely lost their minds. Several spears stabbed frantically through the iron grating, aiming for Soren's face and chest. Yet, displaying an impossible level of agility, Soren instantly released the axe handle. In the exact microsecond he let go, he contorted his body and rolled fluidly through the narrow, blood-slicked gap, breaching the third floor!

Snatching a short sword from the hip of a dead Orc he had kicked down, Soren launched himself like a phantom into the terrified Orc formation. Slitting throats. Severing tendons. Piercing hearts. When the final, gurgling scream was abruptly silenced at the top of the tower, Bloodhorn Fortress's most formidable, impregnable left defensive zone had been thoroughly purged by Soren alone in a matter of minutes. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

The top of the tower was left with nothing but the howling of the freezing wind and rain. Letting the downpour wash the blood from his face, Soren strode straight toward the open balcony overlooking the courtyard, where the colossal anti-siege ballista rested. Meanwhile, in the deep ravine ten miles away. The dying embers of the battlefield were being mercilessly extinguished by the winter rain. Within Soul-Sever Gorge, not a single one of the five hundred Black Iron Orc elites remained standing.

The mud was choked with mangled corpses.

"Form up!" With Gary, Victor, and Lyra acting as the core vanguard, the seventy heavily armored Frontline Elites rallied with terrifying speed amidst the sludge. Standing a short distance away, Leona and Cedric stared at the state of this unit, their hearts trembling with profound awe. Initially, they had believed that this private village militia winning an ambush was already a heaven-sent miracle.

But looking at them now, these seventy black-iron-clad infantrymen showed not a single trace of exhaustion, nor did they utter a single word of idle chatter. Beneath the visors of their heavy helms, every single gaze was locked dead onto the distant enemy stronghold—Bloodhorn Fortress. The Warlord who treated them as equals, who distributed bountiful rations, who promised to bring their fallen brothers home, and who established unheard-of lifelong pensions for the crippled...

that very Warlord was currently entirely alone, wading through blood in the absolute heart of the enemy's lair! What Medieval Lord would ever do such a thing?! To the grunts of Greywater Village, this man was their sole, god-like pillar of faith. And right now, he was carving a path of blood for them, using his own body as the spearhead! Veteran Commander Cedric watched this small, elite detachment swiftly melt into the rainy night to begin their forced march. He offered a bitter smile to Leona.

"If Soren suffers so much as a scratched finger during this infiltration, the absolute fury this unit will unleash upon those walls tonight will be enough to tear the enemy apart with their bare hands." The two observing officers followed the army, pushing rapidly through the thorny bogs. In less than half an hour, the detachment had completely concealed themselves in the waist-high brush on the outer perimeter of Bloodhorn Fortress. The winter rain poured from the heavens.

Gary, acting as the frontline tactical commander, gripped the muddy roots tightly, holding his breath as he stared at the fortress ahead. His eyes were locked unwaveringly onto the towering stone watchtower on the left.

"It's about time," Chief Mage Victor whispered softly from behind Gary. Beside them, Lyra had already bitten her lip until it bled, her knuckles popping as she gripped her enchanted throwing knives. If the signal was delayed even a moment longer, she was ready to disobey orders and breach the walls alone to find Soren. Suddenly! Atop the pitch-black left watchtower, a torch was abruptly muffled with a rag, before rapidly flashing its light into the darkness in a highly specific rhythm: Short, Long, Short.

The microsecond that pre-arranged light pierced the gloom, Gary's tense face exploded with ecstatic relief. That was the ironclad proof of Soren's successful takeover!

"UP!" Gary roared, leaping to his feet in the torrential rain, his sword pointed dead at the gates of Bloodhorn Fortress.

"The Lord has seized the high ground! All units, hear my command! Shatter those gates to dust!" An explosive battle cry, suppressed for miles of marching, detonated from the muddy brush! Inside Bloodhorn Fortress, the sudden, deafening roar of a human charge was terrifyingly abrupt. For the thirty-odd elderly, crippled Orcs left behind in the hollowed-out garrison, it sparked sheer, unadulterated panic.

"What's happening?! How did humans get here?!" The Deputy Commander of the fortress, Urgar, was jolted awake. He didn't even have time to strap on his heavy breastplate before he went stumbling wildly out of the command post. However, when he heard that the commotion outside the walls wasn't a massive sea of troops, but a small, elite strike force, his panic rapidly curdled into berserk fury.

"An arrogant band of humans numbering less than a hundred actually dares to launch a counter-siege on our home base?! They must be tired of living!" Urgar viciously kicked a trembling logistics Half-Orc to the ground, hoisting his spiked iron hammer high as he roared:"Everyone fall back! Take cover behind the barricades of the right watchtower!

"Use the fortifications! Man the crossfire slits on the right wall and pin every last one of those humans to the dirt right beneath the main gates!

"They don't have a battering ram! They can't possibly breach!" The Deputy Commander's tactical judgment was perfectly aligned with orthodox siege doctrine. Those raw-iron-reinforced wooden gates were absolutely impervious to mere manpower. Coupled with the elevated fortifications, the attackers would just be throwing their lives away. But before his smug grin could even set on his face... Out in the rainy night, an incredibly majestic, overbearing magical incantation began to echo like rolling thunder!

A young figure draped in a drenched white robe stepped forward. It was Victor. The immense spiritual pressure of a Silver-tier Mage aggressively communed with the ambient fire elements of the world.

"Searing annihilation born from the ashes! [Greater Explosive Fireball]!!" Victor's eyes widened, his staff aimed dead center at the fortress gates. Right before the horrified eyes of the defending Orcs, an orange-red fireball the size of a grown man materialized. Hyper-compressed and fueled by raw mana, it rapidly expanded against the gale.

Trailing a blindingly bright tail of scorching smoke, the fireball violently flash-vaporized the rain in its path and smashed directly into the center of the insurmountable gates! KABOOM! An earth-shattering explosion, accompanied by blinding hellfire, violently shook the ground for miles! Even raw-iron-reinforced gates could not withstand the hyper-concentrated, destructive pinpoint bombardment of a high-tier Mage. The horrifying sound of tearing metal and shattering timber filled the air!

The intense heat warped and melted the iron, while the densely packed wooden core exploded into shrapnel, blowing a massive, jagged breach wide enough for three heavily armored men to charge through side-by-side. The once-impregnable gate, now engulfed in a shower of flaming debris, teetered on the verge of collapse.

"N-No... A Mage?! Why is there a sanctioned, orthodox Mage here?!" Deputy Commander Urgar stumbled backward, his eyes wide with absolute horror. But what he didn't realize was that the destruction of the gates was merely the prelude to their total annihilation. With the dual advantage of overwhelming magical covering fire and the left watchtower already under Soren's absolute control, the frontline elites of Greywater Village erupted from the mud like vengeful demons.

"For the Lord!"

"For the Warlord who treats us as men! Butcher these animals!!" Seventy heavy infantrymen clad in pitch-black armor leveled their two-and-a-half-meter armor-piercing halberds. Knowing their Commander was currently alone, bleeding within the fortress, ignited a frantic, agonizing rage in their chests, pushing their battle lust to the absolute breaking point! Marching in flawless synchronization, their military boots kicked up a storm of muddy water.

Forming an impenetrable, razor-sharp wedge formation, they marched right over the burning embers of the breach, violently snapped the remaining barricades, and bulldozed straight into the inner courtyard!

"Hold them! Block the breach!" Urgar's heart nearly stopped. Watching the tide of black iron infantry flooding through the gap, he shrieked in absolute desperation:"The communication slate! Contact Karlok immediately!

"Tell the five-hundred-strong main force to turn around and save the fortress! NOW!" He spun around in sheer panic, sprinting toward a glowing agate slate in the center of the courtyard. He frantically pumped his mana into the stone, hysterically trying to lock onto the communication signal of the troops he had dispatched earlier. However, the magical slate remained completely dead, emitting nothing but a faint, buzzing static. Idiots, Soren thought from above. Dead men don't answer communication calls.

In that agonizing microsecond, a cold sweat soaked the Deputy Commander to the bone. Had the main force that marched into the ravine been utterly wiped out without even sending a distress signal?! But before he could even process the apocalyptic implications of his severed reinforcements, the fortress's final line of defense suffered a catastrophic collapse. High atop the left watchtower, the freezing rain violently whipped at Soren's clothes. He was standing behind a monstrously designed Orc anti-siege ballista.

The heavy bowstring, which traditionally required two massive Orcs operating a heavy winch to draw, was being forcibly cranked back by Soren alone, relying purely on the raw, explosive power of his [Minor Blood of Titan]. His [Eagle Eye Perception] effortlessly pierced the layers of rain and fog below, scanning the battlefield with absolute, omniscient clarity. From his elevated vantage point, he spotted an old, one-eyed Orc sniper positioned at the absolute highest firing slit of the right watchtower.

The Orc was grinning maliciously as he drew back a massive, triangular bow slathered in lethal venom. And his aim was locked dead onto Gary, who was leading the charge right at the front of the breach! THWACK! Soren slammed his fist down on the ballista's mechanical trigger release! A massive bolt, thicker than a grown man's arm, shrieked through the sky! The horrifying projectile broke the sound barrier with a deafening roar. CRUNCH! BOOM!

Without a single fraction of resistance, the massive bolt instantly punched clean through the one-eyed Orc sniper's broad chest! The devastating kinetic force didn't even slow down, bodily launching the sniper's massive frame backward through the air in a geyser of blood and shattered bone. With a single, apocalyptic shot, the absolute core of the right tower's defensive firepower was permanently silenced!

Down in the courtyard, the few remaining Orc defenders who witnessed this catastrophic, impaling strike instantly lost whatever microscopic shred of courage they had left to stand their ground. But the rain of death from the heavens wasn't over. Click... clack... clack! Utilizing his terrifying brute strength, Soren cranked the heavy ballista down. The massive, refined-steel crosshairs of the anti-siege weapon locked dead onto the center of the fire-lit inner courtyard.

Right where the remaining thirty terrified Orcs were huddled together!