Chương 216: 216：Shattering Paradigms

The council chamber descended into a heavy silence once more. The only sound was the relentless, freezing wind howling beyond the heavy glass windows. A slight, uncontrollable twitch tugged at the corner of Grand Duke Valentine's mouth. Had it been any other commanding officer within the ranks of the Empire's regular army—even a lowly sergeant born to common dirt—who achieved such an earth-shattering military miracle, Valentine would not have hesitated for a single second.

He would have instantly bestowed the title of Baron upon the man, along with ten thousand acres of fertile land. But Soren was different. The Grand Duke was far too clear-headed for his own good. His mind replayed his previous clash with the young commander. That man had mercilessly rejected the Empire's olive branch, preferring to carve out a brutal, blood-soaked existence in a swamp infested with lethal miasma and two-headed crocodiles rather than bow his head.

"He has absolutely no intention of becoming a servant of the Empire," Valentine muttered in his heart, a deep, gnawing wariness taking root. And that was the fatal crux of the issue. The Grand Duke cherished pure talent like his own lifeblood. He dreamed of subjugating Soren, of forging him into the absolute core of the Empire's vanguard against the Orcs. But this mandatory commendation? It was an absolute, unmitigated political nightmare. What if he set the reward too high?

What if he allocated a torrential influx of raw ores, bestowed a massive herd of heavy warhorses, and opened the vaults to supply Greywater Village with rare magical enchanting materials? Given Soren's terrifying rate of expansion, fueling him with Empire-grade resources would catapult Greywater Village's military might to an entirely incalculable level! It would no longer be a mere survival camp struggling in the mud.

It would mutate into a horrific, heavily armed private warlord faction—operating completely independently from, and outside the jurisdiction of, both the Holy Halycon Empire and the Silvermoon Kingdom! If things truly escalated to that point, and Soren simply crowned himself King of the Swamps, what leverage would the Holy Halycon Empire possibly have to force his submission? Valentine would be personally hand-feeding an uncontrollable, apocalyptic threat right at the Empire's doorstep! However...

The Grand Duke agonizingly shifted his train of thought. What if he aggressively suppressed the reward? What if he offered nothing but hollow verbal praise, pinned a few flashy but useless medals to Soren's chest, and tossed him a meager pittance of mundane grain? The moment the thought formed, the Grand Duke ruthlessly crushed it.

"Too utterly despicable..." Valentine closed his eyes, already imagining the venomous, mocking laughter of the high nobility and the harsh condemnation of the Empire's rank-and-file soldiers. Soren had just engaged in a brutally desperate bloodbath to personally avert Valentine's assassination and single-handedly turned the tide of the war. And you, the Supreme Commander of the North, treat your savior with the stinginess of a street merchant?

The moment word of such vile ingratitude spread, who would ever dare to bleed for the Holy Halycon Empire again? His prestige—the benevolence and absolute honor he had spent his entire life cultivating—would be reduced to a pathetic joke! Give too much, and he rears a tiger, feeding a warlord's ambition until it can no longer be tamed. Give too little, and he becomes a treacherous, ungrateful dog, thoroughly disillusioning the army and destroying his own legacy.

Valentine aggressively massaged his throbbing temples, consumed by a suffocating anxiety. This was no longer a simple matter of tactical sandbox wargaming. It was a perilous tightrope walk of elite political balancing and the dark arts of manipulation. Standing off to the side, General Marr observed the rapidly shifting storm of expressions on the Grand Duke's face. The old tactician saw through the dilemma with crystal clarity, yet even he didn't dare to speak out of turn.

After a long, agonizing silence, Grand Duke Valentine took a deep breath. Having survived decades of political assassinations and blood-soaked battlefields, he finally restabilized his absolute authority as a commander.

"I must show the world my boundless generosity toward my savior and preserve the Empire's dignity. Yet, under no circumstances can I allow Greywater Village to undergo a massive military expansion..." The Grand Duke muttered, speaking half to Marr and half as a grim warning to himself. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

"Marr, immediately audit the manifests of the Imperial Vaults. I am going to meticulously craft the perfect proposal. I need a reward that appears overwhelmingly glorious and deeply favored on the surface... but intrinsically chains him directly to the frontlines as our perpetual shield against the Orcs." Over the next few days, Leona, the Church of the Bright Moon Cleric Elena, and Cedric, the Commander from the Ironpeak Duchy, did not rush to depart.

Instead, they remained stationed within the borders of Greywater Village. After observing the daily routines of this hundred-battle-veteran army at close quarters, these three supposedly worldly and experienced traditional commanders and high-ranking clergy were hit with a violent, paradigm-shattering shock. Early one morning, warm steam billowed from a row of spacious, brightly lit, moisture-proof stilted wooden longhouses situated in the center of Greywater Village.

This was the territory's temporarily designated medical ward. When Leona followed Soren and pushed open the heavy double doors, the air lacked the pungent, foul stench of rotting blood and infected flesh she had anticipated. Nor were there the agonizing, tragic wails of low-ranking grunts facing lifelong crippling injuries. On the contrary, the ward was astonishingly tranquil. The atmosphere even bordered on relaxed.

"Grit your teeth, this might itch a bit." At a wooden cot near the front, Chief Mage Victor was waving his staff, cascading a soothing, azure light over a patient. It was a wide-scale Healing Hydrotherapy spell—a technique notorious for heavily draining a mage's mana reserves. Right beside Victor, Quartermaster Kyle pinched open the jaw of a soldier who had sustained a horrific, bone-deep gash from an Orcish heavy axe. Glug... glug...

With the sound of eager swallowing, a vial of crystal-clear liquid radiating a brilliant crimson glow was unceremoniously poured down the low-ranking private's throat. Leona's eyes bulged violently. Her hand instinctively clamped down onto the hilt of her sword, her breathing hitching in her chest.

"Is that... a [Minor Life Recovery Potion]?!" Leona sucked in a sharp breath of cold air. Her shock was so absolute that her words physically trembled. One had to understand—even in the affluent rear territories of the Silvermoon Kingdom, life-saving elixirs purified by high-tier alchemists were exclusive luxuries. Only pureblood nobles or top-ranking generals were worthy of carefully sipping a few precious drops when hovering on the brink of death.

A single vial of this caliber was easily hyped up to dozens, if not over a hundred gold coins on the black market! And right before her very eyes? This impossibly rare magical potion was being casually dumped down the throat of a standard black-iron infantryman just to treat a flesh wound?! He was literally the lowest-ranking grunt on the totem pole!

The moment the potion hit his stomach, the bone-deep gash across the soldier's abdomen began to visibly writhe, rapidly generating new tissue and sealing into a thick scab. The 'critically wounded' soldier didn't even notice; he was currently grinning like an idiot, bragging to the comrade in the next bed about exactly how his axe had cleanly severed an Orc's femur.

"It's not just the potions..." Elena, the Cleric, covered her mouth, her face pale with profound astonishment.

"They... they are even providing premium care to the permanently crippled." In the corner of the ward, several heavily wounded veterans who had lost limbs in the recent bloodbath were comfortably propped up against soft bales of hay. Each man cradled a massive wooden bowl in his remaining hand.

"Come on boys, eat up while it's hot!" A logistics team comprised of elderly half-elf women and young human girls wheeled a heavy wooden cart into the room. The moment the lids of the heavy oak barrels were lifted, an insanely rich, aggressively savory aroma of stewed meat instantly flooded the entire cabin. It was massive, tenderly braised chunks of Earth Drake meat!

Paired with the territory's staple crop, the highly filling [Swamp Tubers], the stew was not only incredibly satiating, but its rich, glistening broth radiated sheer caloric density. Not only that, but a goblin was scurrying around, eagerly topping off the wounded soldiers' clay mugs with amber-colored rum. The troops were tearing into top-tier magical beast meat that ordinary peasants wouldn't see in three lifetimes. They raised their mugs, devouring meat by the pound and downing liquor by the pint.

One soldier even chugged his ale, rubbed his bandaged stump where his left arm used to be, and let out a boisterous, hearty laugh.

"The Lord Commander gave his absolute word! For the rest of my life, the village is footing the bill for my food and drink until I die of old age! Hah! Losing an arm for this meal was a bloody bargain!" Such an extravagantly high standard of medical care and living conditions rivaled a wealthy Silvermoon noble's luxury vacation. It completely and utterly shattered Cedric and Leona's understanding of military logistics. In this dark, low-magic era, human life was as cheap as dirt.

Base-level grunts were universally viewed as highly disposable, expendable assets. What Kingdom's army didn't drive their infantry to their deaths using rotting black bread and the lash of a whip? What Supreme Commander would ever hemorrhage glittering gold coins to purchase alchemical elixirs, merely to preserve the life of a single, nameless spearman?

"Soren..." Leona swallowed hard. She turned her head to stare at the man standing beside her with his hands clasped behind his back. Her face was flushed red with such intense, burning jealousy her eyes were practically bleeding.

"Where... where the hell did you get so much money?!" Watching his subordinates rapidly regain their vitality, Soren merely offered a faint smile, replying casually:"Commander Leona, from previously eradicating the massive bandit syndicates within the Misty Swamp—and especially from uprooting Bloodfang Fortress and entirely severing the Orcs' supply lines—I've managed to hoard a rather substantial stockpile of spoils."

"Gold coins rotting and gathering mold in a vault hold absolutely zero meaning. Their only true value is realized when they are converted into supplies and potions, and spent directly on my brothers-in-arms." Hearing those words, Leona's heart violently twisted in her chest. She was the official, sitting Commander, yet the Crimson Moon Knights' headquarters was currently so destitute they couldn't even afford to feed their men meat!

She spent her days haggling and fighting with corrupt Imperial quartermasters just to secure basic military pay, living in absolute, wretched poverty. Meanwhile, her supposed "Vice Commander" boasted an overwhelming financial foundation that easily eclipsed the entire Crimson Moon Knights by ten times over! He was richer than the damn regular army of the Ironpeak Duchy! A deeply complex wave of sheer helplessness washed over Leona, and she let out a long, heavy sigh.

She felt an intense swell of pride for her subordinate, yet simultaneously felt excruciatingly humiliated by the stark contrast of his absolute, warlord-tier wealth.