Chương 210: 210：Never Gamble with a Brother's Life

"Hahahaha! Exhilarating!" Accompanied by a gruff, wild laugh, Kyle—Captain of the Pikeman Battalion and possessor of the [Brute Force] talent—strode into the courtyard. Over his shoulder rested a heavy pike still dripping with dark green fluid. Flanking him were Darion, the Chief Swimming Instructor, walking with a steady, grounded gait, and Buck, Commander of the Wolf Cavalry, mounted atop a majestic Alpha Direwolf. Behind the three commanders trailed over two hundred pikemen and ninety-plus wolf cavalry riders.

The soldiers' armor was plastered with foul swamp mud and chunks of enemy gore, yet every single pair of eyes burned with astonishing brilliance. It was the fierce, unyielding aura of veterans forged in the crucible of life and death! Waiting atop the raised stone terrace in the courtyard, Soren swept his gaze over his returning troops. His perpetually cold, stern expression finally softened by a fraction.

"Report your combat results." Kyle split his face in a massive grin. Eagerly stepping forward, he violently drove his heavy pike into a nearby mud pit and roared, "My Lord! Coordinating with Darion and Buck's Wolf Cavalry, we executed a flawless ambush against that eight-hundred-strong Lizardman battalion in Fang Gorge and the clearing beyond!" Darion stepped forward, offering the tactical breakdown.

"Those Lizardmen relied far too heavily on their amphibious advantage in the swamp. Prioritizing agility, they completely neglected the heavy, full-plate armor utilized by the Black Iron Orcs. That fatal flaw led to..."

"... led to them being utterly powerless against our Macedonian Phalanx!" Buck interjected from atop his mount, heavily patting his Direwolf's neck.

"Three synchronized pushing and pulling maneuvers from the pikemen, coupled with my Wolf Cavalry's flanking sweeps... the entire operation was a breeze.

"Our casualties are negligible. Aside from a few minor scratches and extreme fatigue, we suffered zero fatalities!" At this point, however, Kyle awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

"But, my Lord... since they didn't wear armor, we didn't manage to loot a single piece of black iron gear. The haul is honestly a bit shabby.

"The only thing worth presenting is this." Kyle turned around and flashed a hand signal. Dozens of pikemen immediately stepped forward, panting heavily as they dragged several massive bundled nets into the courtyard. These were no ordinary nets. They were colossal beast-snaring nets woven from [Black Swamp Saw-Vines]—a highly resilient flora native to the deepest reaches of the Misty Swamp—that had been chemically softened and braided.

Every single strand was as thick as a grown man's thumb, boasting incredible tensile strength.

"Several hundred beast-snaring nets," Darion explained.

"They originally used them to hunt massive swamp leviathans. Since they lacked armor, we stripped them of all these instead." Listening from the sidelines, Commander Cedric's eyes lit up. As a grandmaster of defensive warfare, he instantly saw the immense strategic value in these unassuming items.

"Do not underestimate these nets! Whether combined with concealed traps, used to reinforce the camp's chevaux de frise barricades, or deployed for aquatic hunting, they will prove exceptionally useful." Soren offered a faint nod, signaling his approval. However, his gaze did not linger on them for long. Instead, he looked straight past the trio, his attention drawn to a thunderous, rhythmic rumbling echoing from beyond the main gates. BOOM! CRUNCH! CRACK!

The very earth trembled, as if some colossal behemoth was rapidly approaching. Minutes later, everyone in the courtyard drew in a sharp breath of cold air. As the dense fog parted along the muddy road, dragged laboriously into Bloodhorn Fortress were four hill-sized corpses of [Ironclad Ground Dragons]! Even in death, their colossal frames radiated a chilling, oppressive aura. The female Half-Elf Commander, Ilya, alongside the Longbow Captain, Ein, stepped forward from the vanguard.

Both were entirely drenched in mud and gore. Ilya's long, naturally vibrant green hair was currently matted into a stiff, dark red mess by dried blood. Trailing behind her were the one hundred and thirty Half-Elf Magic Rangers. Many of them were visibly limping, forced to lean heavily on one another for support. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"My Lord!" Ilya dropped to one knee, her voice trembling with intense, raw excitement.

"The Longbow and Magic Ranger Battalions have successfully executed the interception mandate!"

"At Spine-Sever Gorge, we annihilated a massive volume of Orc infantry, and successfully executed the enemy's heavy artillery support—the four [Ironclad Ground Dragons]!" Ein chimed in from the side, directing the logistics grunts to haul out mountains of spoils.

"We captured four completely intact heavy anti-siege ballistae! Furthermore, if we pack the colossal carcasses of these four Ground Dragons in coarse salt and haul them back, it will be enough to feed the entire population of our territory all the meat they can eat for a solid three months!

"Additionally, we secured over three hundred pristine sets of black iron heavy armor!" This unprecedented, apocalyptic haul of war spoils instantly triggered a low, fervent wave of cheers from the soldiers packing the courtyard. Four strategic-class heavy ballistae! Tons of sub-dragon meat! If displayed anywhere else, this was a level of wealth that would make even the highest grand nobles of the Silvermoon Kingdom red-eyed with envy. However.

At a moment that should have sparked territory-wide celebration, Soren remained standing atop the high terrace, his expression grim and severe. His frosty, razor-sharp gaze slowly, methodically locked onto Ilya and the battered, limping Half-Elves standing behind her. Leona, Cedric, and the others, who had just been excitedly discussing the loot, acutely sensed the drastic, violent plunge in Soren's aura. Their smiles instantly froze.

"Ilya." Soren's voice was dead calm. He slowly descended the stone steps, his deliberate pace radiating a suffocating tension that gripped everyone present. Halting directly in front of the Half-Elf Commander, he looked down at her. His gaze cut like a physical blade, sweeping over her heavily gouged armor and the rangers behind her, whose bleeding wounds were hastily wrapped in torn rags.

"Tell me. You originally held the absolute geographical advantage of the high ground. Why are there so many casualties?" Soren's voice was glacial.

"Could the ranged attacks of the Ironclad Ground Dragons truly inflict such widespread, catastrophic damage against an elevated, sheer cliff position?" Ilya's heart skipped a beat. She raised her head, her eyes flashing with the pride of a warrior desperately yearning for her Warlord's approval.

"My Lord, the enemy's heavy ballistae completely suppressed our elevated cover. At that extreme range, our magical arrows suffered severe mana decay. It was physically impossible to pierce the Ground Dragons' solid granite plating.

"To ensure those behemoths did not leave the gorge alive to pose a threat to your operations, I... I ordered my detachment to abandon high-ground cover. Braving direct, point-blank ballista fire, we forced our firing lines forward to a mere thirty paces from the beasts!"

"So," Soren interrupted, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper, "you willingly used your own flesh and blood to tank a point-blank volley of heavy siege weapons, just to kill a few mindless beasts?"

"But we succeeded! Not only did we slay the four Ground Dragons, but we also—""IS THIS YOUR PRIDE?!" An earth-shattering roar detonated through the courtyard of Bloodhorn Fortress! Soren violently drew the military longsword from his waist. He aimed the tip of the blade directly at the colossal corpses of the Ironclad Ground Dragons—the very same corpses the troops were just treating as supreme treasures. The veins on Soren's usually composed, icy face throbbed with unadulterated fury.

"Is this the tactical answer you hand me as a Commander?!" Soren roared.

"Ordering one hundred and thirty lightly armored archers to engage in a suicidal, point-blank brawl against apocalyptic siege engines?!" Ilya was completely paralyzed by the explosive, suffocating wrath. She stared at him, utterly bewildered. Under her ingrained understanding of warfare in this era, to secure military merits and tactical supplies capable of shifting the entire tide of a campaign... sacrificing hundreds, even thousands of lives, was simply the natural cost of war!

She had paid the price of a mere dozen severe injuries to completely annihilate a heavily armored, strategic-class behemoth detachment! Was this not a miraculous, heaven-shaking triumph?!

"My Lord, I..." Ilya bit her pale lower lip until it nearly bled. Tears of sheer grievance and confusion welled in her eyes.

"Do you have any idea what unforgivable sin you just committed?" Soren leaned down, his burning gaze locking dead onto Ilya's eyes.

"Did I not drill Greywater Village's absolute, supreme combat doctrine into your heads?! The lives of my soldiers supersede all else!"

"What the hell do a few slabs of meat mean?! What is the value of a few broken wooden ballistae?!" Soren bellowed, pointing his sword furiously at the loot.

"Do they even come close to matching the value of the brothers-in-arms who entrusted their very lives into your hands?!" Soren violently thrust his finger toward the bleeding, limping Half-Elves supporting one another in the rear. His voice was laced with agonizing pain and draconian severity.

"If even a single brother or sister died tragically beneath those ballista bolts today because of your reckless, point-blank charge... I would have personally ripped the Commander's insignia right off your chest! Etch that into your marrow!" The courtyard plunged into a deathly, suffocating silence. Only the echoes of Soren's wrath reverberated off the stone walls. Kyle, Darion, and Buck didn't dare breathe too loudly. Standing to the side, Leona and Cedric were completely and utterly dumbfounded.

They were shaken to their absolute cores by a Warlord erupting in apocalyptic fury... exclusively for the sake of his grunts' lives. On this continent, every single general indoctrinated their troops with the belief that they must "gladly die for honor and supplies." Yet the Warlord standing before them was consumed by agonizing heartache, purely because his unit had failed to retreat in time to "preserve combat effectiveness"!

"In the future, if you ever encounter heavy armored suppression that you cannot safely counter..." Soren took a deep, shuddering breath. With a crisp CLANG, he drove his longsword back into its scabbard. Stepping directly in front of Ilya, his previously draconian fury melted into a heavy, exhausted sigh.

"Retreat." Soren's voice dropped to a solemn, ironclad whisper.

"Do you understand me? Without a microsecond of hesitation, you pull your entire unit off that battlefield.

"If you can't beat them, bypass them. Use traps to bleed them dry over time, or simply abandon the objective altogether.

"I do not care how unimaginably rich the spoils of war are. If you march out whole, I expect you to march back whole! You bring our brothers and sisters home! You are absolutely, under no circumstances, permitted to use the lives of my soldiers as gambling chips at a casino!"