Chương 273: 273： The Decree to Obliterate Greywater

Faced with the Ironblood High Overlord's roaring contempt, Warchief Blackstone did not erupt into fury. Instead, he slowly turned his head. His gaze, cold and impossibly penetrating, locked onto the rugged general, seeing straight through to the absolute core of the war.

"Ironblood, take your arrogant, antiquated logic of war and bury it!" The Warchief stepped forward, his colossal frame physically bearing down on the Overlord:"Do you honestly believe a run-of-the-mill border commander of the Silvermoon Kingdom could engineer a lifelong pension system? A system so brilliant it makes the absolute bottom-tier fodder of humanity willingly line up to die for him?!"

"Do you honestly believe a pathetic militia relying on 'cowardly traps' could butcher two thousand of my fully armored Black Iron elites in a head-on clash?!" As Warchief Blackstone mentally reviewed the forensic intelligence scraped from the battlefields regarding the Greywater Village troops, a rare, chilling tremor of apprehension actually rippled through his iron heart.

"Soren and his Greywater Village forces have entirely transcended the traditional cold-steel doctrine of the human heavy infantry phalanx!" The Warchief violently spun around, taking long, commanding strides back to his throne.

"If I allow myself to be blinded by arrogance... If I underestimate him and send my troops in small batches just to feed his meat grinder... that would be absolute, unforgivable stupidity!"

"This young human already possesses the strategic capacity to pose a catastrophic threat to our Alliance. I must completely obliterate him in that muck with absolute, overwhelming force before he can metastasize into an unstoppable juggernaut!" Warchief Blackstone's will was as immovable as a mountain. Looking out at the howling blizzard beyond the hall, he issued his absolute, final decree as the Supreme Sovereign:"The overarching campaign in the Misty Swamp can afford to be delayed.

We can even stomach a few tactical defeats along the broader front line. However..." The Warchief's face twisted into a mask of apocalyptic, suffocating killing intent. He articulated every single syllable with slow, lethal precision:"Soren... MUST DIE! Greywater Village... must be entirely, physically erased from the map of this continent!" AWWOOOOOOOO!

Following Warchief Blackstone's unquestionable, absolute decree, the colossal beast-horn perched atop the highest spire of Bloodfang Fortress was simultaneously blown by over a dozen Herculean Orcs. The desolate, blood-curdling blast brutally tore through the howling blizzard, echoing across every single Orc encampment within a hundred miles. The entirety of the Orc Alliance Supreme Command instantly erupted into frantic, highly disciplined motion. They had entered absolute, maximum combat readiness!

On the plains surrounding the fortress, the very earth began to quake violently. Ten thousand massive [Minotaur Warriors], gripping colossal totem pillars and snorting thick plumes of white vapor from their nostrils, unleashed an earth-shattering war cry. A densely packed ocean of [Centaur Archers] began rigorously testing their bowstrings, their hooves anxiously, aggressively pawing at the permafrost.

Heavily armored [Boar-kin Heavy Infantry] stood resolute in the biting wind, savagely grinding their grotesque, jutting tusks against their iron gauntlets. And in the deepest, most heavily guarded sector of the camp, the three thousand absolute apex veterans of the [Bloodbone Legion]—their eyes glowing with a rabid, ruby-red light, their sense of physical pain entirely erased by dark alchemy—silently strapped their massive, blood-caked battleaxes to their backs.......

Deep beneath Bloodfang Fortress, within the subterranean dungeons carved directly into the black bedrock, the atmosphere was suffocatingly bleak. The damp air was saturated with an incredibly nauseating, gag-inducing cocktail of fresh blood, excrement, and the sickeningly sweet stench of rotting flesh that had festered for years.

The freezing drafts that occasionally swept through the corridors caused the torches to flicker erratically, stretching the shadows of the gruesome torture instruments on the walls into grotesque, dancing claws. CRACK!

"Urgh...!" The sharp, vicious crack of a leather whip breaking the air, followed immediately by a low, agonized grunt, echoed down the cavernous, dripping hallway. Zim, a veteran outrider responsible for the perimeter scouting of the Crimson Moon Knights, was currently suspended in mid-air, tightly bound by two thick, rust-flaked iron chains. Earlier, while executing a high-risk reconnaissance mission on the fringes of the Misty Swamp, he had unfortunately been surrounded by Orc Wolf Cavalry.

To buy enough time for the young, terrified recruits to retreat, this grizzled veteran—who had served the Knights for a full decade—had voluntarily chosen to hold the rear. His warhorse eventually bogged down in a deep mud pit, and after exhausting his absolute last ounce of strength, he was captured. Now, the pristine white tabard representing the glory of the Crimson Moon Knights had long been violently stripped from Zim's body.

His lean, muscular torso was covered in a dense, crisscrossing grid of horrifying, bleeding welts. They were the result of a vicious beast-hide whip—embedded with iron barbs and heavily laced with coarse salt. With every single strike, the whip mercilessly tore away a strip of ragged, bloody flesh.

"Speak! Which filthy mud pit in that swamp is the main camp of your Crimson Moon Knights hiding in?!" The Black Iron Orc jailer panted heavily, his massive chest heaving as he raised the blood-soaked whip once again. His slitted green eyes brimmed with sadistic cruelty.

"Just draw the damn map, and I'll reward you with a bowl of hot meat stew!"

"Pah!" Zim struggled to raise his heavy head. With pinpoint accuracy, he spat a thick glob of blood and shattered teeth directly into the Orc jailer's face. The muscles on the veteran's blood-caked face spasmed violently from the agonizing pain, yet his eyes radiated the absolute, unyielding resolve of a human soldier who had completely conquered his fear of death. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"A brainless animal who can't even speak the Common tongue properly... thinks he can pry intel out of my mouth?" Zim let out a weak, mocking sneer. Internally, he was desperately anchoring his own mind: "Hold on, Zim. You're a veteran. You just have to wait for the blood loss to take over. Then it all goes dark. It will be over soon. I am not afraid to die!"

"You miserable, weak human trash! You want to die?!" Infuriated by the bloody spit, the Orc jailer violently threw the whip aside. Snatching a glowing, red-hot branding iron from the nearby brazier, he took heavy, aggressive strides forward, fully prepared to plunge the searing metal directly onto Zim's face. But just a split second before the glowing iron made contact with Zim's flesh...

"Stay your hand, you imbecile. Your crude, barbaric methods are entirely useless against a man like him." A sinister, spine-chilling voice suddenly drifted from the pitch-black depths of the dungeon corridor. The moment that voice echoed, the temperature in the dungeon seemingly plummeted below freezing. The previously rabid Black Iron jailer violently stiffened. Absolute, unadulterated terror washed over his hideous face.

He frantically dropped the branding iron and scrambled backward, his massive frame trembling violently as he dropped to one knee in the muck. Soft, unhurried footsteps echoed. A gaunt, emaciated silhouette radiating a profoundly unnatural, eerie aura slowly stepped into the flickering torchlight. Shadow Priest Zagar. This was the very same Shadow Priest who had his assassination attempt against Grand Duke Valentine brutally intercepted by Soren, resulting in catastrophic damage to his soul core.

Right now, Zagar's eye sockets were deeply sunken, his flesh clinging to his skull like parchment, while a thick, suffocating miasma of shadow mana continuously writhed around his body. Due to the catastrophic failure of his previous mission, Zagar was currently enduring suffocating political pressure from the highest echelons of the Orc Alliance. He desperately needed high-value strategic intelligence to completely wash away his humiliation. Zagar glided over to the suspended Zim.

With his venomous, reptilian slit-pupils, he slowly and critically appraised the blood-soaked human vessel before him.

"A veteran outrider with a decade of service..." Zagar extended his withered, unnaturally stiff fingers, gently but forcefully gripping Zim's chin, forcing the human's head up. The Shadow Priest's gaze cut like physical blades, piercing straight into Zim's eyes.

"Your gaze is remarkably resolute. Propped up by humanity's laughable, pathetic sense of honor, you truly have made your peace with death." Zagar's voice was a soft, sibilant hiss.

"Branding irons, whips, or even systematically severing your fingers... such crude, brute-force methods of inflicting death will only serve to fuel your tragic, heroic martyrdom as a soldier." Zim glared furiously at Zagar, his teeth grinding together: "If you know that, then give me a quick death!"

"A quick death?" Zagar let out a low, raspy chuckle that made the very marrow in Zim's bones turn to ice.

"I have dissected the human psyche for decades. In doing so, I discovered an incredibly fascinating phenomenon." Zagar released his grip, slowly circling Zim with the predatory grace of a spider, his tone dripping with supreme, arrogant mockery:"There are indeed soldiers who do not fear death. They can smile warmly as they lay their necks upon the executioner's block."

"However... when faced with a prolonged, incomprehensible agony—when forced to watch their own bodies be methodically, agonizingly unraveled piece by piece... they harbor an inescapable, primal terror." Zagar's venomous psychological dissection caused Zim's violently hammering heart to skip a terrifying beat.

"What is he planning? Magic? Those rumored dark arts that drive men completely insane?" Zim forcefully suppressed the surging wave of panic in his chest, keeping his eyes locked dead onto the monster.

"Since mundane instruments cannot pry your mouth open, then, as a special privilege for a true warrior, I shall personally demonstrate the arcane arts of the Spire of Shadows." Zagar ceased his pacing. He slowly raised his right hand. In the center of his withered palm, a mass of deep purple, almost pitch-black shadow mana began to violently writhe and pulse, behaving like a living, carnivorous mollusk.

"[Shadow Flaying]." The instant the incantation left his lips, the mass of purplish-black mana violently elongated. It fractured into tens of thousands of microscopic, razor-thin shadow threads, instantly swarming and coiling tightly around Zim's left arm! Hsssss! A sickening, highly corrosive sizzle filled the dungeon! This was not the burn of fire, nor the slice of a blade! Zim's eyes bulged in absolute, unadulterated horror.

He watched helplessly as those purplish-black threads densely and greedily burrowed straight into the pores of his left arm. Immediately after, the previously intact skin of his arm suffered catastrophic necrotic corrosion. Inch by torturous inch, the flesh turned pitch black, dissolved, curled back upon itself, and finally liquefied into a foul, putrid puddle of black pus that dripped wetly onto the dungeon floor!

"AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHH!" A harrowing, inhuman shriek of absolute agony violently tore its way out of Zim's throat! It was the apocalyptic pain of having his skin liquefied off his body, leaving tens of thousands of highly sensitive raw nerves exposed to the freezing air, only to be repeatedly, maliciously crushed and shredded by the invasive shadow mana! But the truest horror of this flaying was that it wasn't instantaneous. It was a methodical, agonizingly slow process.

The creeping necrosis advanced millimeter by millimeter, crawling excruciatingly from his wrist all the way up his arm. As the epidermis and subcutaneous fat were entirely corroded away, the raw, violently pulsating red muscle fibers beneath were laid completely bare to the air. But the shadow mana didn't stop there. It dug deeper, methodically dissolving the connective tissues holding the muscles together, causing the raw, bloody chunks of meat to continuously, grotesquely peel and curl outward from the bone.