Chương 242: 242：Mission of the War-Chronicler

The Grand Duke's voice was a low rumble, laced with the lingering, cold dread of a narrowly averted apocalypse and profound gratitude.

"The Shadow Priest, Zagar, and his retinue of terrifyingly destructive [Sons of Titan]... If Soren hadn't single-handedly crippled them behind enemy lines and entirely shattered their decapitation strike..." He paused, swallowing hard.

"Right now, my severed head would be mounted inside the main tent of the Blood Province's Governor, serving as a crude drinking goblet for those green-skinned beasts!" Chief Tactician Marr nodded in solemn, absolute agreement.

"Vice Commander Soren's surgical penetration behind enemy lines and flawless ambush didn't just save your life, My Lord. It indirectly prevented the entire northern defensive line of the Empire from violently collapsing into a leaderless rout. A debt of this magnitude is tantamount to a second life."

"Indeed. A monumental debt." Grand Duke Valentine turned around. A rare look of profound conflict and sheer helplessness surfaced on his usually iron-forged face.

"But the agonizing question remains: what in the world can I possibly use to heavily reward my savior?" This was an incredibly thorny, seemingly unsolvable political nightmare laid squarely before the Supreme Commander of the Holy Halycon Empire. The Grand Duke had relentlessly weighed every single chip at his disposal, only to find himself entirely gridlocked at every turn.

"In terms of bestowing noble titles and official ranks... yes, Soren has achieved an earth-shattering miracle. But at the end of the day, he is a citizen of the Silvermoon Kingdom." Valentine ground his teeth, his heart burning with profound frustration.

"Although our two great human empires technically belong to the same grand Human Alliance, our border frictions are endless."

"If I casually bypass the Silvermoon Royal Family and directly crown Soren as an Earl or Marquis of the Holy Halycon Empire, it would be an act of blatant, public subversion!"

"Not only would it instantly brand Soren with the crime of high treason within the Silvermoon Kingdom, but it would violently detonate a catastrophic diplomatic crisis between the two empires!"

"Then... what if we covertly supply him with a torrential influx of tangible resources?" Chief Tactician Marr probed cautiously.

"Say, several hundred thousand gold coins, or directly allocating a few thousand sets of heavy knight's plate?"

"Absolutely not!" Grand Duke Valentine violently snapped his head up, his eyes radiating the profound, deep-seated paranoia inherent to the Empire's ruling class.

"Marr, you haven't fully grasped the sheer, absolute terror of that young man!"

"Right now, commanding a mere few hundred men, he was able to execute a zero-casualty annihilation of two thousand elites and slaughter a Provincial Oracle in the middle of a toxic swamp!"

"His terrifying tactical paradigm—decentralizing his forces and flawless combined-arms synergy—was practically birthed purely for mass slaughter!" The Grand Duke sucked in a sharp breath of freezing air, laying his deepest, most Machiavellian anxieties bare:"Right now, I dream of nothing more than subjugating him—of making him willingly bleed for the Holy Halycon Empire."

"But... if I provide him with a massive, bottomless injection of war resources right now... given his monstrous command capabilities, Greywater Village will instantaneously violently mutate into a colossal, heavily armed military faction!"

"Once he possesses absolute, independent military might and no longer needs to rely on anyone's charity—if he reaches the point where he can independently stand against the Orc main force—how could I, Valentine, ever hope to control him?! What possible chips would the Empire have left to force his submission?!" Cannot grant titles, to prevent a diplomatic rupture. Cannot grant coin or heavy armor, to prevent feeding a tiger and permanently losing the chance to subjugate him.

The Grand Duke paced frantically before the roaring brazier, his hands clasped tightly behind his back. Suddenly, his boots ground to a dead halt. The hearth fire danced wildly in his pupils as an absolutely brilliant, flawless strategic masterpiece violently pierced through his dilemma. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"Marr! I have it!" Grand Duke Valentine snapped his head around, his eyes burning with the blinding, terrifying excitement of an apex politician who had just seen through the entire geopolitical chessboard.

"Since I absolutely cannot grant him tangible authority or material resources, then I shall bestow upon him the intangible, supreme asset that every single general in this world would go mad for: Absolute Prestige!"

"I am going to aggressively, wildly broadcast the miracles authored by Soren across the entirety of the Human Alliance! This shall be the Empire's supreme, ultimate commendation for his life-saving grace!" Chief Tactician Marr froze for a microsecond before plunging into profound thought. The Grand Duke took massive strides back to the strategic sandbox, planting his hands heavily on the edges.

His vision was no longer rigidly confined to a tiny Greywater Village; it had violently expanded to encompass the colossal Human Alliance—a coalition spanning over thirty nations across the continent!

"Look closely at our current predicament, Marr," Valentine said, his voice heavy with profound agony. He pointed at the flags representing the human defensive lines, which were continuously, tragically shrinking inward.

"Right now, the war between the Human Alliance and the Orcs' Blood Province has entered its most grueling, absolutely brutal stalemate!"

"Our Holy Halycon Empire is managing to hold, but what about the weaker principalities and kingdoms within the Alliance?"

"Years of relentless warfare. Mountains of corpses! A severe, deeply defeatist panic has taken root among the civilian populaces of the major kingdoms!"

"The intensely pessimistic rhetoric that 'the Orcs are invincible' and 'resistance is utterly hopeless' is spreading like a plague through the rank-and-file soldiers!" The Grand Duke clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white from sheer frustration.

"Even worse! Faced with the venomous bribes thrown out by the Orc Alliance, certain high-ranking nobles with actual military authority have entirely lost their will to fight!"

"They are covertly selling out our intelligence, committing high treason, and trying to secure their own qualifications to be high-ranking slaves before humanity is entirely exterminated!"

"In this critical, apocalyptic moment, where the morale of the entire human faction is hovering on the absolute brink of total collapse... we desperately, violently need a beacon." Grand Duke Valentine's piercing gaze locked dead onto the coordinates of Greywater Village. His voice rang out with absolute, earth-shattering conviction:"And Soren... Soren is the absolute, most flawless beacon!"

He forcefully unspooled his colossal, deeply far-reaching propaganda campaign to Marr:"I am going to elevate Soren and the massive triumphs of his Greywater Village forces into the absolute, supreme paradigm of humanity's resistance against the alien horde!"

"I will execute a massive, cross-border propaganda offensive!"

"I will ensure that across all thirty nations of the Alliance—whether it is a crowned king, a beggar on the street, or a crippled soldier waiting to die on the frontline—every single one of them will know!"

"They will know that deep behind enemy lines, in a treacherous, crisis-ridden toxic swamp where even birds cannot survive, there exists a human army!"

"Not only were they not wiped out, but they butchered thousands of elite Orcs and shot the arrogant Wyverns straight out of the sky!"

"They will know that humanity is equally capable of fighting massive battles—and winning them!" Grand Duke Valentine's chest heaved violently. This plan was the ultimate, flawless double-edged stroke. It bestowed upon Soren a peerless, world-shaking reputation as a reward, while simultaneously ensuring not a single actual soldier or tangible threat was added to his ranks.

More importantly, he would weaponize the military miracles authored by Soren to ruthlessly bludgeon the traitors and pessimists, violently reigniting the fighting spirit of all humanity!

"Pass down my Supreme Commander's mandate!" Grand Duke Valentine barked his decisive order.

"Summon Lucia immediately! Have her brought before me tonight!" An hour later. The massive, reinforced doors of Megalithh Keep were shoved open against the howling blizzard. Biting, freezing wind surged inside as a woman draped in a black, windproof cloak took massive strides into the vaulted hall. She pulled back her frost-caked hood, revealing a sharp, practical cut of dark brown hair. This was Lucia, the absolute most renowned frontline war-chronicler within the human faction.

She was absolutely not one of those pampered, fragile noble scholars who hid in the cozy capital, weaving fictional poetry from pure imagination. Her cheeks bore the rugged marks of harsh blizzards and extreme weathering, and her piercing azure eyes radiated a brilliant, vibrant light that displayed her extraordinary courage. Over the past ten grueling years, Lucia had constantly operated on the absolute most lethal, razor's-edge frontlines against the Orcs.

She had recorded the tragic collapse of fortresses amidst torrential rains of arrows, and she had interviewed dying generals while sitting in literal mountains of corpses and seas of blood. To her, parchment and ink were her weapons—her vital tools for fighting the Orcs and violently awakening the conscience of humanity.

"Lord Valentine, you summoned me urgently in the dead of night. Has the defensive line shifted?" Lucia didn't waste a single breath on pleasantries. She even bluntly waved off the hot mulled wine offered by an attendant, marching directly up to the Grand Duke and pulling out a heavily battle-worn journal meticulously wrapped in waterproof leather. Valentine looked at his old acquaintance and nodded in deep satisfaction.

"Lucia, the defensive lines hold. However, I have a highly classified, massively strategic mission to entrust to you." The Grand Duke walked over to his desk, picked up a dispatch sealed with the Supreme Commander's wax crest, and handed it directly to her:"I want you to pack your bags immediately. At first light tomorrow, you will journey into the absolute depths of the Misty Swamp, to the territory known as Greywater Village."

"I want you, representing the Supreme Command of the Holy Halycon Empire, to conduct the most profound, exclusive interview and comprehensive record of that miracle-working hero of the Orc War... Soren!" Clatter. The piece of charcoal chalk Lucia was holding instantly slipped from her fingers, dropping onto the wooden floorboards the microsecond she heard the name "Soren."

This iron-willed war scholar—a woman known for maintaining her composure even if a mountain collapsed before her—violently widened her azure eyes, her chest heaving as she entirely lost her composure. As the absolute most well-informed scholar on the frontlines, others might have only heard fragmented rumors of Soren's battle record, but Lucia had meticulously pieced together the horrifyingly brilliant, entire scope of the truth from heavily classified reports across multiple factions!

"Soren... is it truly that Soren?!"