Chương 205: 205： High-Low Synergy

Amidst Ein's thunderous roar, fifty longbowmen clad in black iron half-cuirasses stood up in perfect unison atop the sheer cliff. Abandoning all cover, they completely unleashed their fields of fire.

"Target: The structures and ballista operators atop the backs of the three Ground Dragons!"

"Rapid fire! Draw to the absolute limit! Suppress them! I don't want a single ballista aimed at the Half-Elves below!"

"LOOSE!!" CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! The rain of arrows falling from the sky no longer sought the impossible task of piercing the dragons' heavy scales. Instead, every single trajectory was meticulously controlled to land squarely on the elevated firing platforms. An Orc attempting to pivot his ballista to aim at the Rangers in the gorge didn't even have time to turn the winch before three armor-piercing bodkins impaled him from above. Shrieking in agony, he plummeted from the beast's back.

With the high ground delivering surgical strikes to the beasts' dorsal firing platforms, the Orc shooters were pinned down, completely unable to harass the agile Half-Elves in the mud below. Down in the gorge. The three remaining behemoths, sensing the terrifying death of their kin, joined the few dozen surviving infantrymen in a chorus of panicked shrieks. The behemoths thrashed their colossal bodies and wildly shook their heads, attempting erratic movements to throw off the Rangers' aim.

Desperate Orc officers screamed orders for the beasts to simply trample the Rangers into the dirt. If these were standard human knights, surviving the devastating stomps and violently whipping, tree-trunk-like tails would be a physical impossibility. But these were Half-Elves—beings blessed with unparalleled agility!

"Evade the tail sweep! Six o'clock! Fire-attribute explosive arrows, loose!" A Half-Elf combat squad actually used the flying debris kicked up by the beast's stomp as a springboard, vaulting gracefully into the air toward the creature's rear flank. As the Ground Dragon twisted its body, exposing the joint of its neck, three fiery magical arrows threaded perfectly through a hand-sized gap between the granite slabs and its natural armor, biting brutally deep into the flesh! KABOOM!

The flames instantaneously expanded from within the scales! The sickening stench of flash-roasted flesh billowed outward as the internally detonated magical shockwave violently blew the granite plating right off the beast's back! The Ground Dragon unleashed a harrowing death wail, instantly losing all motor function. It crashed heavily into the mud, its limbs twitching briefly before falling dead silent. Tactical suppression was a flawless success.

Executing these tactical maneuvers in the crucible of such a brutal, close-quarters clash didn't just systematically eradicate the terrifying behemoths from the battlefield; it pushed the combat morale of the Half-Elf Rangers to an inconceivable, absolute apex! Once upon a time, facing such insurmountable monsters left them with nothing but the option to shiver and await slaughter. But now?

Utilizing the tactical doctrines drilled into them by their Warlord, combined with their innate racial talents, they were effortlessly dismembering these colossal leviathans. This life-and-death reversal vastly invigorated Ilya and every single warrior. Supported by the seamless covering fire from the high-altitude longbow formation, they fought with an ever-growing frenzy, unleashing an absolute massacre! Meanwhile.

Positioned safely in the rear of the Orc infantry battalion atop an elevated command slope, Half-Orc slaves held a rain canopy high over a hulking Orc Commander. His face was a mass of scars and blood-red tumors. This was Jadd, a notoriously brutal general of the Blood Province's Bloodaxe Tribe.

When the high-altitude longbowmen unleashed their very first volley, grinding his three-hundred-strong infantry vanguard into bloody paste, this grand commander hadn't even bothered to lift his ass from his skull-inlaid wooden wolf-throne. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. He had simply tossed aside a half-gnawed bone.

Showing zero panic, he had loudly mocked them, sneering at his adjutant:"Look at these humans, and those half-breeds who only know cheap parlor tricks. What a pitiful, delusional little force!"

"They honestly think squatting on a broken hill and shooting a few flimsy twigs will stop a supply line personally dispatched by the Warchief?" The adjutant bowed and scraped, laughing sycophantically.

"Indeed, my Lord. They're definitely terrified by our sheer numbers. All they can do is hide up there and shiver."

"Tell the surviving grunts up front not to panic! Those trash bowmen can't even scratch my trump card." Jadd threw his head back, downing a swig of hard liquor.

"Push the four [Ironclad Ground Dragons] straight to the front! Since we've been ambushed, I'm not going to bother hiding them anymore." Brimming with supreme confidence, a destructive urge swelled in his heart. He knew perfectly well that the solid granite covering those behemoths couldn't be shaken even if the enemy possessed heavy ballistae, let alone those pitiful, weak arrows.

"With the invincible defense and apocalyptic ramming power of these four Ground Dragons, we will trample every obstacle in our path!"

"Smash right through the bedrock at the base of that cliff! Force a breakthrough! The second we're out of this gorge, I'm going to personally crush their commander's skull with my bare hands!" However. Just as Jadd was riding the high of his liquor, having issued the order for the behemoths to execute a full-speed breakthrough in anticipation of a reverse-slaughter... His previously relaxed gaze locked firmly onto the leading heavy-class Ironclad Ground Dragon.

He watched with his own eyes as it roared at the heavens. But then, he saw over a hundred Half-Elf Rangers leap from the high ground in an act of sheer suicide, charging unflinchingly to within a mere thirty paces of the Ground Dragon's feet! And then. There was no earth-shattering collision. Just a faint, yet horrifyingly crisp sound of flesh being punctured. Squelch.

That heavy-class Ironclad Ground Dragon—a beast raised on an astronomical sum of provincial resources—had its brain matter violently erupt from its eye socket. As Jadd stared in absolute, jaw-dropping disbelief, the behemoth let out a sorrowful wail and crashed heavily to the ground, dead on the spot. Clatter! The wine bowl slipped from Jadd's grasp, shattering into pieces. Completely oblivious to the hard liquor spilling across his chest, the pride of this battle-hardened commander vanished into the void!

He abruptly stood up, the scars and fat on his face violently twitching from absolute terror.

"Impossible... That's impossible! That's an Ironclad Ground Dragon!" Plunged into profound shock and panic, Jadd's mind went completely blank. In his long, century-spanning history of continental warfare, once defenders secured high-ground cover, even in death, they would absolutely never—nor would they ever dare—leap out of their safe zone! He fundamentally could not comprehend what kind of monstrous commander was leading this force.

How could they dare to execute a maneuver that so thoroughly inverted all strategic common sense—placing themselves at point-blank death range and willingly abandoning high-ground cover in an act of sheer suicide?! He was even less capable of understanding how those flimsy wooden arrows, imbued with weak Nature magic, could suddenly erupt with such apocalyptic lethality within a mere thirty paces, instantly destroying a dragon's defense that even heavy siege weapons couldn't crack!

"Lunatics... Every single one of them is a complete and utter lunatic trained by demons!" Jadd finally realized the horrifying truth. The enemy before him was no mere band of stragglers. This was an absolute, apex elite detachment! Down in the gorge, Ilya continuously orchestrated the slaughter. Having thoroughly conquered their fear, the Half-Elf Rangers relied on their numbers and flawless coordination to continuously grind down the behemoths, executing precise, lethal point-blank volleys. BOOM! ROOAARRR!

One after another, the Ironclad Ground Dragons that had absolutely dominated the opening moments of the battle let out a chain of death wails. They were systematically eradicated by magical arrows threading the gaps in their armor, their colossal corpses piling into a literal mountain of meat at the bottom of the narrow gorge. The shooters mounted on their backs were fully reduced to corpses under the dense, surgical sniping of the longbows.

As the final Ground Dragon collapsed with a sorrowful shriek, Jadd, stripped of every last trump card, felt his legs turn to jelly. This Orc detachment, originally intending to use a surprise march to reinforce the southern vanguard, had gone from arrogant breakthrough to helpless lambs waiting for the slaughter... in the span of barely half an hour. The eternal winds of the Misty Swamp howled endlessly, the foul stench of decay forever lingering.

At another treacherous death zone destined to be soaked in blood—the Wailing Valley. This was the designated battlefield for Ironwood Fortress, the stronghold guarding the northern gates of the Silvermoon Kingdom. Deep within the heart of the Wailing Valley, amidst a reed marsh flooded with knee-deep water, nine hundred shield-bearing pikemen attached to Ironwood Fortress lay silently in ambush beneath the muddy sludge.

The freezing winter rain lashed against their pitted, heavily repaired black iron half-cuirasses. At the absolute forefront of the formation stood the Commander of Ironwood Fortress, Galahad. His weathered, battle-scarred face was etched with a grim, suicidal resolve. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him was Gabriel, a young general born to powerful high nobility who commanded Ironwood Fortress's most elite mobile forces.

This aristocratic knight, historically known for being a fastidious neat-freak, currently paid zero mind to the nauseating stench of the swamp. He allowed his warhorse to trample through the rotting mire, his gripped light crossbow coated entirely in mud.

"Brother Gabriel," Galahad spoke, pulling an old, half-cleaved emblem from his breastplate. It was the insignia of Ironwood Fortress's heavy infantry battalion. Standing resolute in the freezing rain, the old general's voice trembled slightly, overflowing with absolute, unadulterated hatred.

"Half a month ago, ten [Sons of Titan] shredded our outer walls."

"Three entire heavy infantry battalions! Those young lads were smashed into bloody pulp before they even had the chance to say their morning prayers! The apocalyptic shame of losing over half our forces has pierced my heart and ground my bones every single day. It has kept me awake every single night!"