Chương 246: 246：Reverse-Engineering the Forbidden

Waiting until Victor's manic excitement had marginally subsided—though the Mage was still panting heavily—Soren finally stowed his charismatic smile. His expression hardened into a mask of absolute, Warlord-tier solemnity. He stepped up to the desk, solemnly picking up the five incredibly heavy [Meteor Shower Magic Scrolls] with both hands. Under Victor's utterly disbelieving gaze, Soren shoved them directly into the Mage's embrace.

"M-My Lord... what are you doing?" Victor scrambled frantically to catch the scrolls. The searing heat radiating from them burned his hands red, yet he clutched them tightly to his chest, his mind entirely blank.

"Sir Victor. I am officially transferring absolute jurisdiction of these five strategic-class magical assets to you," Soren declared, his voice radiating majestic authority laced with profound expectation.

"I order you: from this day forth, aside from the absolutely essential maintenance of our medical and defensive arrays, you are to drop every single miscellaneous task!"

"You will pour your entire being into conducting deep-dive research on the high-tier runes and mana circuits inscribed upon these scrolls!" Victor's jaw dropped. He thought Soren was merely asking him to safeguard these priceless treasures. He actually wanted him to research them?! If a Forbidden-tier scroll accidentally detonated during analysis, it would literally vaporize the village!

Furthermore, these were exorbitantly precious artifacts—what kind of supreme commander would ever allow a subordinate to casually dismantle and reverse-engineer them? Reading the sheer terror and confusion in Victor's eyes, Soren ruthlessly laid bare his grand strategic vision.

"Victor, Greywater Village cannot survive in the long term by relying solely on scavenged, external artifacts." Soren stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his words striking like hammer blows to the Mage's soul:"Yes, these five scrolls can serve as our ultimate trump cards. In a massive theater war, if we are backed into a corner, they can provide ultra-large-scale firepower to annihilate the crisis."

"But scrolls are consumables! Once torn, they are gone forever!"

"What I truly value... is you!" Soren took a massive stride forward, slapping Victor heavily on the shoulder:"You possess [Double Mana Capacity]! You possess [Omni-Elemental Mastery]! Your heaven-defying talents are entirely shackled by the pathetic, degraded magical lineage of this era!"

"I want you to deconstruct the absolute mysteries within these Forbidden spells! I want you to reverse-engineer the underlying laws of their mechanics! I want you to grasp the absolute truth of high-tier magic!"

"Even if you cannot perfectly replicate a Forbidden spell, if you can merely extract one-tenth of its destructive architectural framework and fuse it into your own spellcasting... it will be more than enough to trigger a fundamental, qualitative mutation in your power!" These incredibly earnest, heart-to-heart words utterly and completely pulverized the final psychological defenses within Victor's soul.

To cultivate him, the Lord Commander was actually handing him a Forbidden trump card capable of obliterating an army, explicitly allowing him to dismantle it for research! This trust pressed down on his shoulders with the weight of a mountain, yet it was profoundly, infinitely deep. Thud! Clutching the scrolls, Victor dropped rigidly to his knees before Soren.

This typically aloof, proud scholar pressed his forehead deeply against the floorboards, his oath of fealty absolute and entirely uncompromising:"My Lord, your grace is tantamount to a second life! I, Victor, hereby swear a blood-oath!"

"From this day onward: as long the scrolls survive, I survive! If they are destroyed, I shall atone with my death!"

"I will absolutely forsake sleep and rest! I swear to meticulously dissect every single high-tier mana circuit within these scrolls, and forge them into Greywater Village's absolute, most lethal magical arsenal!" Looking at Victor's fanatic devotion to the scrolls, and fully trusting his elite, professional foundation in mana analysis, Soren nodded in deep satisfaction. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Just as the two men were experiencing a surge of profound excitement over the Forbidden scrolls... Knock! Knock! Knock!

"My Lord! Urgent military and political affairs!" Fina, the Chief Financial Officer, called out from outside the heavy wooden door, her voice slightly breathless. This fallen noble daughter, who managed the territory's entire logistical ledger, was famously known for her unshakable composure. Yet right now, she couldn't hide the intense vibration in her voice.

"Enter." Soren immediately shot Victor a glance. The Mage instantly understood, using his wide sleeves to carefully and entirely conceal the five scrolls radiating their searing crimson halos. Creak. The wooden door was pushed open. Not even bothering to shake the freezing rain from her cloak, Fina marched straight to the desk, reporting at a rapid-fire pace:"My Lord, the covert sentries Meyer deployed in the outer toxic miasma zones just transmitted an urgent report."

"At the very edge of the Misty Swamp, two detachments flying official diplomatic banners have appeared simultaneously!"

"One detachment is flying the Iris Royal Banner of the Silvermoon Kingdom's Supreme Command in the capital. They claim to be special envoys directly appointed by His Highness, The Prince Regent." Fina swallowed hard, her expression tightening with severe gravity as she continued:"As for the other... they are clad in the standard heavy armor of the Holy Halycon Empire. They are escorting a female scholar bearing the personal, absolute mandate of Grand Duke Valentine."

"She claims to be the war-chronicler representing the entire Empire and the Human Alliance, tasked with a frontline propaganda mission. Her name is Lucia!" Hearing those two names and backgrounds, Soren's eyebrow twitched slightly. He instantly fell into deep calculation.

"Envoys from the Silvermoon Capital, and the official mouthpiece of the Halycon Empire..." Relying on the hyper-acute political instincts of a modern special forces commander, Soren instantaneously, violently pierced through the dark political undercurrents driving this event:"Grand Duke Valentine is indeed a supreme, apex politician."

"He doesn't send tangible resources, nor does he grant official titles. Instead, he sends the absolute most renowned war scholar on the continent directly to my doorstep. He intends to weaponize the hollow title of a 'Hero of Humanity' to place me on an untouchable pedestal, entirely using me as a political chip to reignite the Empire's shattered morale."

"As for the Silvermoon Kingdom... it's blindingly obvious that Supreme Command has finalized their resolution."

"They witnessed the catastrophic damage I inflicted behind enemy lines. Now, they want to pacify the pragmatic frontline generals like Rodman, while simultaneously attempting to slip a political collar around my neck to control me." The simultaneous arrival of these two detachments was absolutely no coincidence! It was the political tentacles of the two great human factions violently lunging toward this swamp, completely unable to wait another second after witnessing Greywater Village's miraculous combat record!

"Fascinating. Since they've taken the initiative to deliver themselves to my doorstep, we must naturally receive them flawlessly." Soren stood up. Casually grabbing his black windproof cape from the back of his chair, he violently snapped it over his shoulders.

"Fina, pass down my orders! Have Kyle immediately drain the muddy water from the central square and ignite the welcoming braziers. Escort them directly to the grand guest cabin." A profoundly Warlord-esque smirk touched Soren's lips.

"I want to see exactly what 'gifts' they've brought me." Half an hour later. In the central sector of Greywater Village, within the massive, highly moisture-proofed stilted cabin specifically designed for receiving foreign dignitaries. The two diplomatic delegations from the grand empires had already been seated. High-grade smokeless charcoal burned in the hearth, entirely purging the acrid smoke typical of swamp fires and rendering the room as warm as spring.

Yet, the representatives sitting inside were entirely unable to calm themselves; their hearts were currently being ravaged by absolute, world-shattering shock. The royal envoy from the Silvermoon Kingdom was a middle-aged aristocrat draped in extravagant court silks, his face powdered with expensive cosmetics. Initially, he had maintained a suffocatingly arrogant posture.

He genuinely believed this trip was a charitable act of bestowing royal grace upon a wretched slum, and had fully prepared himself to hold his nose against the putrid stench. However... the very microsecond he stepped into the territory of Greywater Village, his absolute arrogance was instantaneously, violently vaporized by the sights before him. Sitting on his wooden chair, the envoy covertly peeled back a corner of the window shutter to peer outside.

Entirely without his realization, a thick layer of cold sweat had broken out across his powdered forehead.

"This... what kind of dilapidated swamp village is this?! This is a fully militarized, heavily industrialized war fortress armed to the absolute teeth!" The royal envoy's teeth were literally chattering. His mind was screaming frantically. With his own two eyes, he saw the dense, interlocking arrays of sharpened chevaux de frise driven deep into the bedrock, perfectly sealing off every conceivable charge route.

He saw the ten-meter-tall wooden watchtowers actively pulsing with the faint, lethal hum of magical concealment arrays. But what struck absolute, freezing terror into his very soul... was the battery of anti-air siege ballistas mounted on the northern high ground, radiating a chilling, metallic lethality!

"He even entirely plugged the anti-air defensive gap! No wonder the battle reports said he shot Wyverns out of the sky!" The envoy swallowed hard, his throat bone-dry. He had heard Duke Fernando furiously accuse Soren of building an independent warlord faction in the royal court. At the time, he thought the Duke was massively exaggerating. What could a filthy commoner possibly achieve?

But now, looking at the heavily patrolling vanguard elites outside—juggernauts clad in matte-black [Black Steel Full-Plate Armor] whose marching footsteps thundered like rolling thunder—this royal envoy came to a horrifying, absolute realization: If this man named Soren announced a violent rebellion right this very second... every single regular army unit the Silvermoon Kingdom had stationed in the Misty Swamp, combined, would be utterly, completely slaughtered by those heavy infantrymen!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the wooden cabin. The war-chronicler from the Holy Halycon Empire, Lucia, was currently displaying an entirely different state of mind.