Chương 266: 266：Dead End for a Traitor

Soren's voice suddenly pitched up, echoing like roaring thunder:"A human traitor who submits to the Orcs has forfeited all right to sanctuary!"

"Any human in this world with blood in their veins has the right to execute you!"

"I kill you not for myself, but for the women and children who would die choking on poison gas, and for the true heroes bleeding on this defensive line!" This severe, righteous reprimand completely shredded Cullen's last, pathetic veil of hypocrisy. A dead silence fell over the standoff, the air itself thick with a suffocating, murderous intent. The dozen-plus loyalist infantrymen gripped their knight's swords tightly, cold sweat beading on their foreheads.

They knew perfectly well that if they didn't fight to the death right now, they were doomed.

"Since you refuse to play by the rules... then let's all die together!" Cullen's face twisted into a mask of pure malice. The moment he spoke, he suddenly flattened himself against his mount. His right hand—which had been hanging seemingly limp by the saddle—whipped up at lightning speed! Clutched in his grip was a fully loaded, poison-laced heavy repeating crossbow!

"Die!" Cullen snarled, viciously yanking the trigger. However, against Soren's system-enhanced [Danger Perception] and [Eagle Eye Perception], Cullen's "lightning-fast" sneak attack was laughably sluggish. A faint, abyssal glow surfaced in the depths of Soren's eyes, and the world instantly slowed to a crawl. He could clearly see the crossbow's catch snapping open, the poisoned bolt just beginning to leave its rail.

Channeling the terrifying, monstrous strength granted by his [Faint Titan Bloodline], Soren instantly drew the [Windwhisper Bow] to its absolute breaking point. Cyan wind runes violently ignited across the bow limbs, unleashing a high-pitched, resonant shriek. TWANG! The shuddering thrum of the bowstring overpowered even the howling blizzard. A heavy armor-piercing arrow, wreathed in a violently spiraling vortex of wind pressure, fired a split-second later yet struck first! CRACK! SQUELCH!

The projectile launched from the high-tier elven longbow carried an unstoppable, apocalyptic kinetic force. First, it flawlessly struck the front of Cullen's repeating crossbow, detonating the refined-steel mechanism—capable of piercing iron plate—into a cloud of metallic shrapnel! Immediately following, without losing a single ounce of momentum, the arrow tore forward like a bolt of cyan lightning, viciously punching straight through Cullen's Mithril-helmeted skull!

The terrifying, chaotic kinetic impact literally blew the top of Cullen's head off! A grotesque spray of red blood and white brain matter erupted into the air. The sheer kinetic force violently ripped his helpless body entirely off his horse, pinning him firmly to a dead, withered tree trunk several meters away! Cullen didn't even have the chance to scream. The terror in his eyes rapidly dimmed into empty darkness, his limbs violently twitching a few times before he hung there as a lifeless corpse.

"The Commander is dead! Avenge him!" Deputy Commander Gass unleashed a harrowing shriek, raising his tower shield to launch a desperate charge.

"Lyra," Soren ordered coldly, unhurriedly stowing his longbow.

"At your command, My Lord." Lyra vaulted off the massive boulder with the silent, lethal agility of a phantom. Her hands blurred into an untraceable afterimage as dozens of shrieking silver streaks densely carpeted the narrow ridge pass. Her [Throwing Knife Master] talent was displayed in its absolute, terrifying entirety. Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! The silver flashes flawlessly bypassed the heavy breastplates and helmets of the infantrymen.

With wicked, impossible angles, the blades sank deep into the exposed joints and gaps of their armor.

"Gah! My knee!"

"My wrists!" In the span of just two or three breaths, the dozen-plus fierce, heavily armored loyalists—including Gass—screamed in agony, dropping their weapons and collapsing to the snow in unison. Their wrist joints, Achilles tendons, and the backs of their knees—non-lethal but instantly crippling weak points—had been surgically severed by the throwing knives. Not a single corpse hit the ground, but every man was writhing in the snow, utterly incapacitated.

Through the flawlessly synchronized, overwhelmingly superior coordination between Soren and Lyra, what could have been a desperate, bloody counterattack was entirely dismantled in less than thirty seconds. On their side, not a single drop of snow or blood had even touched their cloaks. Just as the brief clash settled. Accompanied by the frantic thundering of hooves, a blood-soaked Cedric, pushing his exhausted warhorse to the brink of collapse, finally crested the hill, panting heavily.

He raised his heavy knight's broadsword, fully prepared to unleash a roaring war cry—only for the sound to catch squarely in his throat the moment he took in the sight before him. Through the blizzard, his once-trusted adjutant, Cullen, hung from a withered tree, a heavy arrow through his skull in a gruesome display of death. Deputy Commander Gass and the dozen-plus mutinous cronies were rolling in pools of their own blood, wailing in agony. This novel is published on a different platform.

Support the original author by finding the official source. The broadsword Cedric held half-raised in the air slowly lowered. Seeing the traitors who had nearly doomed the Duchy meet such a pathetic end, the suffocating anxiety in Cedric's chest finally dissipated, replaced by the relief of having a lethal tumor thoroughly excised. But right on the heels of that relief came an overwhelming, crushing wave of guilt.

"I... as a Commander... I am a complete and utter joke." Cedric slid off his horse, his broadsword clattering onto the snow. The fiercely proud, unyielding general stared at the traitors writhing on the ground, burying his face in his hands as agonizing tears of self-reproach spilled over his scarred fingers.

"To think I let a pack of insatiable, cowardly swine command the Duchy's finest troops right under my nose... If it weren't for you, the lives of the entire Duchy's military and its citizens would have been destroyed by my hands."

"I... I am a sinner!" Watching the veteran general torture himself with the immense weight of duty, Soren slowly walked forward and firmly patted Cedric's pauldron. He didn't talk down to him from the high ground of a victor, nor did he offer a condescending lecture.

"General Cedric, you need not shoulder the burdens and failures of an entire era alone." Soren turned slightly, gazing out over the boundless, desolate snowfields:"The human faction is locked in a grueling, bloody stalemate with the Orcs. The borderlines are paved with corpses."

"It is the corruption of the power-brokers in the Royal Capital, and the cowardly defeatism spreading among the high nobility, that poisoned the minds of this army."

"Cullen's soul was rotted by that systemic, top-down decay. It was not a failure of your teachings." Soren then turned back, looking Cedric squarely in the eyes:"I originally intended to shoot his mount, capture the traitor alive, and hand him over to you to face the Duchy's military tribunal to restore your army's discipline."

"But the scoundrel was stubbornly unrepentant, attempting a desperate counterattack with a poisoned crossbow. Under such critical circumstances, I was forced to execute him on the spot. Please forgive me for overstepping my bounds and handling this outside of your jurisdiction." These airtight, flawless words caused a profound realization to wash over Cedric, moving him to his very core.

Soren wasn't reprimanding him for failing to manage his subordinates; instead, he was flawlessly deflecting the blame onto the corrupt political environment of the capital! In Cedric's eyes, whether this was Soren's genuine belief or a diplomatic excuse, the young lord was bending over backwards to preserve Cedric's dignity as a Commander in front of the entire army!

"Lord Soren..." Cedric's voice choked with emotion. He violently snapped his spine straight and delivered the highest, most honorable knight's salute, slamming his fist over his heart:"You didn't just save my life and preserve the defensive line... you protected my honor as a soldier."

"From this day forth, if any rat in the Royal Capital dares to utter a single word of slander against Greywater Village, my Ironpeak Heavy Infantry Battalion will be the first to smash their mouths in with our tower shields! You, My Lord, are a man worthy of my lifelong allegiance!" Amidst the howling blizzard, the two commanders, both holding immense military authority, exchanged a knowing smile. An unbreakable, ride-or-die pact was forged right then and there.......

When the two men, escorted by a squad of Black Steel elites, finally returned to the Sunset Hills camp, the chaos of the mutiny had already completely settled. The massive encampment was deathly silent, broken only by the occasional snort of a warhorse. However, the moment Cedric stepped through the gates, his professional instincts as a military commander were profoundly, utterly shaken by the sight before him. It had taken less than half an hour!

The thousand heavy infantrymen, previously caught in a frenzy of panic and chaos, were now squatting in an orderly fashion with their hands securely on their heads inside a designated holding zone. And the force suppressing them? A mere seventy Black Steel elites from Greywater Village. Yet, these seventy men had formed an airtight, flawless perimeter that pinned down a thousand! Cedric keenly observed that these seventy elites weren't just standing guard like mindless grunts.

They were structured into highly sophisticated, three-man tactical cells, positioned in an interlocking, inverted triangle formation! Every single visual blind spot was perfectly covered. The front ranks leveled their heavy halberds as a physical deterrent, while the rear ranks kept their refined-steel repeating crossbows locked directly onto the gaps! Cedric involuntarily sucked in a sharp breath of cold air.

Under this three-dimensional, crossfire-heavy defensive web with absolutely zero dead angles, even if the thousand prisoners somehow mustered the courage to riot, they would be systematically slaughtered the very second they tried to stand up. This microscopic mastery over the details of war... this terrifying tactical coordination that completely shattered the era's traditional "line up and charge" doctrine...

It caused the veteran general's estimation of Greywater Village's military might to skyrocket to an entirely new, unfathomable height!