Chương 243: 243：Welcome to Greywater Village

Lucia's breathing hitched, her voice trembling with barely contained excitement.

"My Lord! Do you have any idea how profoundly shaken I was when I compiled those frontline battle reports?!"

"A mere few hundred ragged remnants! How in the world could they execute a zero-casualty annihilation against two thousand Black Iron Orcs without a single heavy cavalry charge?!"

"He didn't just uproot Bloodhorn Keep... he shot Wyverns straight out of the sky from a hundred meters below!" Lucia's cheeks flushed a feverish red. For a scholar obsessed with the absolute truth of war and tactical artistry, the very existence of Soren was a living, breathing subject of unparalleled, monumental research value!

"My Lord Grand Duke!" Lucia abruptly snapped to attention. Her expression hardened into one of absolute, unyielding resolve as she made her declaration:"Forgive my bluntness, but even without your explicit orders and official documents, I had already planned to infiltrate the Misty Swamp entirely alone just to find and interview him!"

"Every single one of his campaigns isn't merely a brilliant, tactical masterpiece. They radiate a profound humanity—a commander who places the lives of his base-born grunts above all else!"

"I am going to see it for myself! I will personally record every single word that leaves his mouth and every tactical deployment he executes! I will ensure that his name is permanently, indelibly etched into the minds of all humanity throughout this dark era!" Witnessing the unparalleled, burning fanaticism Lucia displayed for this mission—an absolute drive that completely cast aside her own life and death—Grand Duke Valentine finally threw his head back and erupted into roaring laughter.

"Excellent! Hearing you say that completely puts my mind at ease!" The Grand Duke solemnly placed the official liaison mandate into Lucia's hands. His face turned stern as he issued his final, absolute directive:"From this microsecond forward, you possess absolute, maximum-clearance passage."

"Remember this, Lucia. Do not be stingy with your praises! I want you to take every single miracle you witness in Greywater Village and capture it with the most vivid, blood-pumping words at your disposal!"

"At first light tomorrow, you depart immediately! Destination: Greywater Village!"

"I want all thirty million citizens of the Human Alliance to know the legendary deeds of Soren, authored exclusively by your pen!" Meanwhile, freezing rain wove densely through the grey, toxic miasma of the Misty Swamp, creating an atmosphere so suffocating it was hard to draw breath. Along a deeply muddy, treacherous swamp trail, a highly polarized detachment was currently trudging forward. Forming the outermost perimeter were the seventy vanguard elites under Soren's command.

Clad entirely in matte-black [Black Steel Full-Plate Armor], their heavy visors were pulled down, revealing only pairs of ruthlessly cold, hyper-vigilant eyes. Their fine-steel boots stomped through ankle-deep, rotting mud, yet not a single man uttered a word of complaint. The marching rhythm of the seventy juggernauts was flawlessly synchronized.

Their two-and-a-half-meter-long armor-piercing heavy halberds formed a dense, mechanical thicket of iron amidst the torrential downpour, radiating a suffocating killing intent as they securely shielded the wounded within the absolute safest center. Encased within this impregnable defensive ring were the battered remnants of the Ironpeak Duchy. Over thirty surviving Ironpeak soldiers leaned heavily on one another.

Some used snapped spear shafts as makeshift crutches, while others clutched deeply bleeding abdomens, stumbling forward with agonizingly unsteady steps. Their severe injuries drastically crippled the marching speed of the entire column. Yet, Soren did not issue a single command to hurry them. He simply remained entirely silent, taking the vanguard position while Lyra took the rearguard, maintaining an absolute, flawless perimeter overwatch.

"Huff... Huff..." Commander Carter's face was deathly pale. His highly prized Ironpeak heavy armor was currently covered in horrific, jagged fissures. He turned his head, looking at Intelligence Officer Isabella, who was clutching the waterproof map cylinder tightly to her chest. He could no longer hide the agonizing dread in his heart.

"Lady Isabella... at this marching pace, I fear the brothers' wounds won't hold out until we clear the swamp." Carter dropped his voice to a whisper, feeling absolutely hopeless. He knew all too well the apocalyptic cruelty of the Misty Swamp. The highly acidic mud and toxic miasma here would cause open wounds to rapidly fester and rot. Even without an Orcish pursuit, the sheer brutality of nature would mercilessly devour them. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Isabella bit her pale lower lip, her wet, golden-blonde hair plastered against her cheeks. As a High Intelligence Officer, her mind rapidly pulled up all classified data regarding human settlements within the swamps. Destitute. Primitive. Severely starved of resources. Places where men would eagerly slit a throat for half a loaf of moldy black bread.

"Lord Soren's Greywater Village is just ahead," Isabella took a deep, shuddering breath, sounding as though she was trying to comfort Carter, or perhaps trying to lie to herself.

"As long as they have a dilapidated wooden shed to shield us from the rain... if we can just start a fire, and use a red-hot dagger to cauterize the brothers' wounds... we might be able to save a few of them." That was it. That was the absolute, highest luxury the Ironpeak Duchy's regular army dared to expect from a swamp territory: a shed that didn't leak, a pile of burning wood, and the brutal, agonizingly crude method of cauterization and amputation. However...

When this utterly exhausted, battered column rounded a mountain bend choked with massive toxic mushrooms, the grey mist before them abruptly parted. In that single microsecond, every single soldier of the Ironpeak Duchy—including the highly worldly and experienced Isabella—was completely and utterly dumbfounded. They froze dead in their tracks like stone statues. A profound, earth-shattering shock gripped their hearts. Their breathing instantaneously stopped.

What appeared before their eyes was absolutely not some dilapidated, wretched refugee camp. It was a fully fortified, heavily industrialized miniature war fortress, standing like an absolute miracle upon the slopes of a dormant volcano!

"By the Holy Light... am I hallucinating?" An Ironpeak veteran with a gaping abdominal wound entirely forgot his agonizing pain. His jaw dropped wide open, staring forward in sheer disbelief. Rows upon rows of spacious, impeccably clean, and heavily moisture-proofed stilted wooden longhouses were arranged with flawless architectural precision atop the safe, hardened rock veins.

Overlooking the village from the northern high ground, six massive, high-elevation anti-air siege ballistas pointed their lethal mechanical maws down toward the surrounding swamp, establishing a zone of absolute suppression.

"This... this is Greywater Village?! A mere village established completely behind enemy lines?!" Commander Carter sucked in a sharp breath of freezing air. As a career military commander, he recognized the terrifying, heavily industrialized war foundation backing this defensive line at a single glance. Such an airtight, oppressive defensive network completely eclipsed even the official, heavily funded Viscount fortresses along the Ironpeak borders!

Isabella's shock, however, pierced even deeper into her strategic core. It was currently mealtime. Yet, the interior of the territory lacked a single trace of the desolation, starvation, or ruin typically left in the wake of the Orcish wars. On the contrary, within flawlessly organized agricultural plots, lush, vibrant green [Swamp Tubers] were thriving, completely immune to the highly acidic mud.

Upon the wide, paved bluestone paths, human civilians, half-elves, and even goblins—a race universally despised as filthy scavengers—were bustling about, working shoulder-to-shoulder with absolutely zero racial barriers! From the direction of the dormant volcano, geothermal blast furnaces spewed towering plumes of black smoke into the sky, accompanied by the deafening, ceaseless, rhythmic clanging of heavy hammers striking hot iron. The air here lacked the pungent, rotting stench of the swamp entirely.

Instead, a dense, aggressively savory aroma of rich meat stew drifted through the wind, causing the starving Ironpeak soldiers to swallow their saliva with frantic, ravenous desperation.

"The resources here... how can they possibly be this abundant?! This place is more bustling and prosperous than the highly funded border towns in our Duchy's deep rear!" Isabella's heart hammered violently against her ribs. The scene unfolding before her completely, violently pulverized every single preconceived notion she held regarding the Misty Swamp.

To thrive in an absolute death-trap behind enemy lines, to establish a harmonious cross-species society, and to simultaneously drive both aggressive agricultural expansion and heavy military-industrial forging... the political and administrative capabilities of this Lord were nothing short of god-like! Facing the dumbfounded, utterly petrified stares of the Ironpeak forces—gazes that were now actively bleeding with profound reverence—Soren, walking at the absolute vanguard, slowly came to a halt. He turned around.

His face lacked even a microscopic trace of arrogant flaunting. Instead, he offered a highly charismatic, exceptionally humble smile.

"Commander Carter. Lady Isabella. This swamp is a desolate, impoverished backwater. We merely rely on the sheer diligence of our brothers to barely scrape a miserable living out of the mud." Soren stepped slightly to the side, executing a flawless, polite gesture of invitation.

"Please forgive the shabby sight. Come, enter the camp and escape the freezing rain." Carter and Isabella exchanged a glance, a series of bitter, deeply helpless smiles flashing through their minds. An impoverished backwater?! Barely scraping a living from the mud?! If this heavily industrialized, resource-stuffed fortress was considered an 'impoverished backwater,' then the heavily funded frontline citadels of the Ironpeak Duchy were nothing but absolute, pathetic slums!

The more humble Soren acted, the more terrifyingly unfathomable and deeply majestic he appeared in their eyes. However, the very microsecond they stepped through the gates of Greywater Village, the humble aura around Soren instantly vanished. His eyes sharpened, erupting with the absolute, tyrannical authority of a Warlord.

"Kyle! Sir Victor!" Soren's thunderous bark echoed through the camp.

"My Lord, we are here!" The exceptionally burly Quartermaster, Kyle, along with the scholarly, staff-wielding Chief Magic Advisor, Victor, instantly surged forward, leading a highly trained, rapid-response medical and logistics team.

"Take over the treatment of every single Ironpeak wounded immediately! Spare absolutely no expense! Even if you have to exhaust our reserves, you absolutely will not allow a single one of them to die from deteriorating injuries on our territory!" Soren issued his command with cold, surgical decisiveness. Hearing this absolute guarantee of life, Carter and Isabella were moved to the point of hot tears, their gratitude completely overflowing.

But the scene that unfolded next delivered a profound, paradigm-shattering shock to these veterans of the regular army. Inside the largest, most expansive wooden longhouse in the center of Greywater Village, ambient geothermal heat baked the air, rendering it exceptionally dry and incredibly comfortable. The thirty-odd, critically wounded Ironpeak soldiers were meticulously and gently laid down upon soft cots lined with fresh hay and clean linen.

"Grit your teeth, boys. Where the Holy Light fails to reach, arcane magic can equally bestow the miracle of life." Chief Mage Victor raised his intricately carved staff, his lips rapidly chanting an obscure, resonant incantation. In a split second, massive spheres of azure, watery ripples—pulsating with a rich, overwhelming density of life essence—violently materialized and converged beneath the vaulted ceiling of the cabin. [Wide-Scale Healing Hydrotherapy]!