Chương 228: 228：Digging the Bunkers

Following a brief, breathless silence.

"We won!"

"The Wyverns have been shot down! Long live the Lord Commander!" Greywater Village instantly erupted into a deafening, earth-shaking roar of victory. Civilians who had taken shelter in the southern primeval forest emerged from the dense canopy, weeping tears of absolute joy as they embraced one another. The seventy vanguard elites, clad in their pristine Black Steel Full-Plate, aggressively pounded their breastplates, the resounding metallic clangs echoing their soaring battle-lust.

The goblin technicians manning the ballistas were so ecstatic they were literally doing somersaults in the mud. Standing in the epicenter of the cheering crowd, Soren looked out toward the massive, mangled corpses of the Wyverns. Those were their spoils of war.

Wyvern scales could be forged into premium, highly-resistant leather armor; their incredibly tough sinews would make peerless bowstrings; and their mana-rich flesh would serve as the ultimate nutritional supplement to further enhance the physical conditioning of his troops. Yes. Relying entirely on his modern tactical doctrine of pre-emptive interception, combined with the captured heavy ballistas and the [Windwhisper Bow] in his hands...

aside from the collapse of a few wooden cabins, Soren had repelled the once-arrogant aerial beast division of the Orc Alliance at a microscopic cost. The smoke of war had yet to clear. Drifting above Greywater Village, the pungent stench of sulfur was now heavily intermixed with the thick, coppery scent of blood.

As waves of manic celebration surged across the defensive perimeter, this tiny, muddy swamp settlement—a place entirely unworthy of even a name on the Empire's military maps—had just weathered an anti-air defense campaign destined to be permanently etched into the annals of the war against the Orcs. On the northern high ground, the colossal corpse of a Wyvern had snapped two thick, dead trees in half upon impact, its lower body still deeply buried in the mud pit.

Buck, the battle-hardened veteran who had formerly served as a border cavalry captain for the Silvermoon Kingdom, walked up to the dead behemoth. This grizzled soldier, a man who had spent years rolling through piles of corpses, reached out with trembling hands to touch the Wyvern's barbed, iron-hard claws. The moment his fingertips grazed that cold, unyielding lethality, Buck sucked in a sharp breath. A layer of cold sweat instantly erupted across his back.

"Unbelievable... this is an absurd miracle," Buck muttered to himself, his voice shaking, heavy with profound reverence. Having commanded wolf cavalry patrols along the northern borders for years, he knew better than anyone exactly what kind of apocalyptic nightmare these high-altitude magical beasts represented to conventional ground forces. He turned his head, looking at the solemn face of the former Chief Mage, Victor, and then at the half-elf commander, Ilya, who was quietly staring ahead.

"Lord Victor, Commander Ilya... can you even believe this?" Buck pointed at the massive corpse, his tone surging with intense emotion.

"If this had been the heavy infantry legions of the Silvermoon Kingdom—even the absolute most elite Royal Paladins—without dozens of high-tier mages joining forces to sustain a massive magical barrier... what could they possibly do against a low-altitude dive-bomb from ten Wyverns?!" Buck let out a tragic, bitter laugh, answering his own question:"They could do absolutely nothing!

They could only raise their supposedly 'impenetrable' tower shields, huddle tightly against the dirt, and passively absorb the bombardment!"

"They'd just have to pray to the gods that a falling boulder didn't cave their skulls in, or that an iron spike didn't skewer their hearts!"

"As for fighting back? Using standard bows to shoot at armored monsters a hundred meters in the sky? That is a pipe dream!" Victor leaned heavily on his staff, his ancient, wise eyes narrowing slightly. With his keen magical senses, he could clearly detect the violent, residual waves of wind-element mana still violently ravaging the torn trachea of the Wyvern shot down by the arrow.

"Indeed," Victor sighed deeply. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Yet today, in this muddy, forgotten swamp... our Lord Commander relied on nothing but six salvaged, modified ballistas and the longbow in his hand to forcibly swat six apex predators straight out of the sky!" Ilya, the half-elf, took a deep breath of the freezing, biting wind. Her normally melancholic green eyes were now burning with an astonishing, brilliant light.

"This isn't just a tactical victory. This has fundamentally shattered the Orcs' absolute, long-standing monopoly over the airspace of this continent."

"After today, Greywater Village will become a fortified meat-grinder that strikes absolute terror into the heart of the entire Blood Province." The three core commanders, all possessing profound, highly experienced military backgrounds, exchanged glances. Their faces were flushed with intense, burning passion. They had followed the right man. Serving under such a terrifyingly formidable, visionary supreme commander filled them with an overwhelming sense of belonging and supreme glory that made their blood boil.

However, in stark contrast to the near-manic cheers and borderline worship surrounding him, Soren, standing in the center of the anti-air battery, wore an expression of absolute, chilling coldness. He didn't bask in the surging adulation of his subordinates, nor did he allow the victory to cloud his judgment for a single microsecond.

"Shut your mouths!" Soren's thunderous roar violently overpowered the deafening noise of the square. His falcon-like gaze swept across the cloud layer. Utilizing the deep-scanning capabilities of his [Eagle-Eye Perception], he meticulously confirmed that the four surviving Wyverns had completely vanished beyond the southern mist. Only then did he slide his fine-steel longsword back into its scabbard with a crisp shing.

"Kyle! Darion!" Soren barked his cold, ruthless military orders.

"Stop standing around gawking at giant corpses like idiots! Take two squads and immediately lock down all primary thoroughfares in the village! Maintain strict order! Prevent any secondary stampedes caused by post-battle chaos!"

"Logistics and medical teams, deploy immediately! I want a full damage and casualty assessment, now!" Under Soren's flawlessly logical, highly authoritative suppression, the previously chaotic soldiers instantly cooled down, rapidly rediscovering their iron-clad military discipline. The entire village operated with extreme coordination, shifting back into highly efficient, post-battle protocols. A short while later, the exceptionally burly Quartermaster, Kyle, came sprinting through the mud, taking massive strides.

This absolute brute of a man—who could literally tear out an Orc's throat with his bare hands on the battlefield—was currently clutching a rolled parchment, his massive hands trembling uncontrollably.

"M-My Lord..."

"Read it. How many structures destroyed, how many men dead. Give it to me word for word," Soren commanded, turning to look the man straight in the eyes. Kyle took a massive breath. He violently straightened his broad, muscular back and roared at the top of his lungs toward the sky:"Reporting to the Lord Commander! Upon thorough verification, during this aerial raid, the territory's center suffered the destruction of thirty-seven moisture-proof stilted cabins, five supply sheds, and two water wells. BUT..."

Reaching this point, sheer, unadulterated excitement flushed Kyle's face bright red. He waved the parchment wildly, using every last ounce of strength in his body to scream out the final numbers:"Due to your flawlessly precise early warning, combined with the perfectly executed evacuation routes... of the vanguard soldiers, the civilians evacuated into the forest, and the crippled veterans..."

"Out of a total population of one thousand, one hundred and eighty-three people... only seven suffered minor scrapes during the retreat! Zero severe injuries! Zero fatalities! Absolute zero casualties!" A coordinated carpet-bombing by ten fully grown Wyverns. If this had occurred in any other Baron's territory, it would have been a guaranteed apocalyptic tragedy, leaving the land littered with corpses and rivers of blood.

But here, under Soren's absolute protection, not only had they slaughtered six of the behemoths, but he had successfully safeguarded every single life! Soren felt a brief pang of relief in his heart. The strategic value of his [Danger Perception] talent vastly eclipsed the simple act of killing enemies. If that instinctual premonition hadn't bought him that priceless window of time, the moment those massive boulders plummeted into a densely packed crowd, the consequences would have been unthinkable.

Yet, Soren did not allow himself to feel the slightest bit of complacency. His brows knotted together tightly once more.

"It's still not enough..." Soren walked past the ruins of the wooden cabins, staring down at a crater half a meter deep caused by a falling boulder. In his mind, he was already coldly and ruthlessly dissecting his own faction's fatal weaknesses. Nobody died today entirely because the Orcs underestimated us. They used primitive rocks and blunt iron. What if those animals return next time carrying highly refined, volatile tar for a firebombing run?

What if they launch a raid in the dead of night, when the swamp fog is at its absolute thickest and visibility is zero? Relying solely on six bulky heavy ballistas still leaves us with massive, highly exploitable defensive blind spots.

"Pass down my command!" Soren abruptly turned around, facing all of his military officers, directly initiating the next phase of his strategic deployment:"Let this battle serve as our absolute baseline! We are going to forge Greywater Village into a true, impregnable fortress!"

"Luger!" Soren singled out the Hobgoblin Master Artisan.

"Immediately lead the engineering corps! I want you to carve directly into the dormant volcano and the western hard-earth zones! We are digging subterranean air-raid bunkers!"

"The tunnel networks must be heavily curved! Straight lines are strictly forbidden! You will engineer blast-mitigation angles to prevent the shockwaves of localized bombings from funneling inside and crushing our people!"

"Meyer!" Soren continued without missing a beat.

"The anti-air alarm is officially split into two tiers! Starting tomorrow, you will map out standardized, completely unobstructed evacuation flow-lines."

"On the fifth and tenth day of every single month, the entire village—men, women, children, and the elderly—must participate in highly simulated air-raid drills! If I catch anyone dawdling or falling behind during a drill, they will be docked three days' rations!" Listening to this flawlessly logical, incredibly far-sighted strategic planning, a profound, unshakeable reverence settled heavily into the hearts of the subordinates.

Their Lord Commander seemed to harbor an absolutely inexhaustible well of modern warfare wisdom. While others were still blindly cheering and getting drunk off a single victorious battle, he had already slammed the door shut on the enemy's next ten possible avenues of attack.