Chương 263: 263：Excuses of a Traitor

"If this is merely a defensive rotation..." Cedric's gaze was razor-sharp, locking dead onto the thick, half-burnt cigars resting on the table in front of Cullen.

"Since when do human territories cultivate Bloodleaf weed? A foul, rotting herb smoked exclusively by Orc Shamans!" That single sentence brutally shattered Cullen's carefully crafted illusion. The tension in the room instantly skyrocketed past the point of no return.

"Hah... hahahaha!" Seeing that Cedric had completely seen through the truth, Cullen dropped the tearful victim act. The feigned grievance on his face twisted into wild, unrestrained laughter. He casually pulled his silk robe tighter, slumped lazily into a chair, and threw away all pretense, laying his cards on the table.

"Since you insist on getting to the bottom of this... fine. I'm done pretending." Cullen spread his hands, his eyes practically swimming with naked, unadulterated greed:"That's right! Gass and I have decided to accept integration under the Governor of the Blood Province."

"Tomorrow morning, the moment the Orcs' [Bloodbone Legion] arrives, we will instantly become the Commanders of an Independent Auxiliary Legion under the Orc Alliance!" Hearing the treason confessed from the man's own mouth sent a violent tremor through Cedric. Despite his prior tactical suspicions, hearing his once-trusted subordinate utter such shameless words left him utterly appalled. Amidst the shock, the image of the young lord of Greywater Village suddenly flashed in his mind. Soren...

you are isolated deep within the Misty Swamp, yet you managed to dissect the clues piece by piece and flawlessly predict the mutiny of a general hundreds of miles away! Your instincts for war are absolutely terrifying! If not for your early warning, the Ironpeak Duchy wouldn't have even known how their flank collapsed until the blade was already buried in their backs!

"You shameless, spineless bastards!" Cedric trembled with pure, volcanic fury. He violently drew the heavy knight's broadsword from his waist, the steel blade gleaming with a deadly chill.

"Now hold on, Commander! Don't get angry! Hear me out!" Seeing the drawn steel, Deputy Commander Gass took a half-step forward, plastering a sickening, sycophantic smile across his face.

"Commander, you're too rigid! This is a feigned surrender! All's fair in love and war, right?"

"Think about it! If we pretend to submit to the Orcs, we can easily scam them out of massive shipments of monster meat and refined iron ore!"

"Once we use Orcish resources to expand our battalion to two or three thousand men... the moment the time is right, we turn our blades, strike back, and return to the human empire! Isn't this the perfect scheme to kill two birds with one stone?"

"You're spouting utter bullshit!" Cedric could no longer stomach this intelligence-insulting sophistry. He roared his reprimand:"Feigned surrender?! Do you really think the Governor of the Orc Alliance is a brainless idiot?! The second you drop your weapons to your knees, the second you act as their guides and let them through the pass, your command structure will be instantly dismantled! Your loyalists will be reassigned and scattered to the wind!"

"You are nothing but pathetic fools willingly volunteering to be Orcish slaves without even realizing it! Do not use the excuse of 'protecting humanity' to cover up your sickening, repulsive greed!" Those words brutally pierced Cullen's hidden sore spot. His fragile ego severely triggered, the resentment he had bottled up for years erupted violently.

"So what if we are?!" Cullen viciously smashed his silver wine goblet onto the floor and savagely kicked over the nearby roasting spit. His face flushed crimson, his eyes wide and manic as he screamed at the top of his lungs:"Did the high command of the Ironpeak Duchy ever give a single damn whether we lived or died?! Three years ago during the Border Defense War, our battalion was ground down to half its men! And what did those fat nobles in the Royal Capital do?!

They handed out a few hundred worthless medals of honor! Did they ever give us a single grain of extra ration?! A single decent suit of armor?!" Cullen pounded his chest fiercely, roaring like a madman:"Over the past few years, the heavy repeating crossbows in our hands were bought because I lowered my head, begged, and kissed the boots of wealthy merchants!"

"The Mithril-alloyed Plate on my soldiers' backs? I, Cullen, personally led my brothers to risk the executioner's block smuggling munitions! We even resorted to outright banditry just to scrape this arsenal together!" Years of perceived injustice had completely warped his sense of duty and national loyalty.

"This luxuriously equipped heavy battalion... it does not belong to the Ironpeak Duchy!"

"It belongs to me! It is my private property! And I will absolutely not lead the fortune I bled to build into a meat grinder, dying for nothing just to protect a bunch of bloated nobles who only know how to drink wine and play with whores!"

"I have the right to choose the highest bidder! Whoever pays the most gets my army!" Hearing this absolute bandit logic, Cedric abandoned any lingering thought of persuasion. He understood now; the man standing before him was rotten to the very core. He took a deep breath. Leveling his heavy broadsword, Cedric drew an absolute, unyielding line in the sand: Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

"Cullen. Gass. If you believe the human high command has wronged you, if you so desperately want to be lapdogs for the Orcs, I won't stop you."

"Even if you stripped naked right now and crawled all the way to the Blood Province on your bellies, I would pretend I saw nothing!"

"But hear my dying warning: The thousand human soldiers in this battalion are soldiers of the Ironpeak Duchy!"

"Those suits of Mithril Plate and those heavy repeating crossbows are critical national assets necessary to halt the Orcish invasion! You two can leave, but don't you dare think about taking a single soldier or a single weapon with you to the enemy!" Cedric's words struck at the absolute core of this filthy transaction. He knew all too well that the Orc Envoy didn't give a damn about an incompetent coward like Cullen.

What the Orcs truly coveted was this heavily armored force capable of laying down devastating area-of-effect firepower! Without this army, Cullen and Gass would be completely worthless to the Orc Alliance!

"Hahaha! You old fool! You really have gone senile! You waltz in here alone asking to die, yet you still dare to act so tough?!" Since the bridge was completely burned, Cullen could no longer contain the murderous greed in his eyes.

"Do you honestly think anyone in this camp still takes orders from you? Since you won't let me take the troops... fine! I was just worrying that I lacked a hefty enough gift to secure my position with the Blood Governor!"

"The severed head of Cedric, the Heavy Infantry Commander of the Ironpeak Duchy... now that is an incredibly sincere gift to prove my loyalty!"

"Kill him!" Deputy Commander Gass violently drew his longsword, pointing the tip directly at Cedric. The exact moment Gass roared his order, a dense, synchronized chorus of mechanical winches cranking back exploded from the shadows outside the central tent. The rebellious heavy infantrymen who had been lying in ambush surged forward in droves, numbering over a hundred! They were armed to the teeth with heavy repeating crossbows, completely surrounding the tent.

Through the slashed gaps in the canvas, the dark, lethal muzzles of a hundred crossbows locked dead onto the interior. Facing an overwhelmingly disproportionate numerical disadvantage, Cedric didn't take a single step back. The twenty heavily armored cavalry guards behind him displayed breathtaking military discipline. In the face of certain death, not a single man uttered a word.

In perfect unison, they drew their broadswords and slammed their massive, man-sized tower shields heavily into the ground with a resounding thud! The twenty tower shields seamlessly interlocked, forming a miniature steel fortress that shielded Cedric in the absolute center. A razor-thin, incredibly tense standoff ensued within the confines of the tent. The wind howled violently outside. A bead of cold sweat slid down Cullen's temple.

But in this critical, life-or-death precipice, Cedric displayed the decisive, ruthless courage of a true frontline commander. Kill the leader first! Abandoning passive defense, Cedric's legs coiled like springs before exploding forward with terrifying speed.

"Die, traitor!" Filled with apocalyptic wrath, Cedric vaulted over his guards' tower shields. Gripping his heavy broadsword with both hands, he used the monstrous momentum of his charge to deliver a savage, downward cleave aimed squarely at Cullen's skull! The blade tore through the air, unleashing a high-pitched, screaming sonic boom. Cullen hadn't expected in a million years that Cedric, trapped in an absolute disadvantage, would dare to strike first.

The horrifying, suffocating killing intent crashing over him contorted his face in sheer terror. In his blind panic, Cullen executed an act of supreme cowardice. Without a fraction of hesitation, he grabbed one of his own loyal lieutenants who had been serving wine, violently hauling the man in front of him to act as a human meat shield! SQUELCH! A massive fountain of blood erupted.

Driven by unadulterated fury, Cedric's broadsword effortlessly sheared through the unfortunate soldier's chainmail, cleaving straight through his left collarbone and deep into his chest cavity. Boiling hot blood splashed violently across Cullen's luxurious silk robe. Exploiting that split-second meat shield, Cullen executed a pathetic, scrambling roll across the floor, narrowly escaping being bisected.

"Fire! Shoot him to pieces!" Cullen shrieked, his voice cracking hysterically as he frantically cowered behind a shattered piece of the oak table. THWIP! THWIP! THWIP! THWIP! The moment the order left his lips, the sharp, vibrating twang of heavy crossbow strings erupted from outside the tent. A dense, suffocating swarm of steel-tipped, armor-piercing bolts tore into the command tent. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! Sparks flew wildly as the deafening screech of metal biting into metal violently rocked the confined space.

The sheer kinetic impact of the heavy bolts forced the elite cavalry guards to stumble backward behind their tower shields. Drawing their longswords and battleaxes, over a dozen mutinous soldiers howled like wild beasts as they poured into the tent, violently clashing with Cedric's heavy cavalry guards. In the blink of an eye, the lavish command tent was reduced to a brutal, blood-soaked slaughterhouse. A terrifying, close-quarters melee fully erupted amidst wave after wave of bloodthirsty, savage roars!