Chương 300: 300：The Centaur Blitzkrieg

Vwuuuom! A piercing, high-pitched shriek tore through the air. The focusing rune at the wand's tip abruptly erupted in a blinding, searing white light. Within a ten-meter radius, the falling snowflakes were instantly flash-vaporized into hissing steam by the sheer, staggering heat! BOOM! A highly compressed fireball, nearly a meter in diameter, shot forth with an overwhelming kinetic force, carving a perfectly straight trail of hellfire through the air! The very earth trembled beneath their feet!

One hundred and fifty meters away, the massive block of raw cast iron took a direct hit. A deafening, world-shattering explosion ripped across the testing range. A violent, ring-shaped shockwave of flame blasted outward in all directions. The sheer force of the gale whipped the cloaks of the three standing atop the earthen ridge into a frenzy. Thick, billowing columns of black smoke, accompanied by pulverized shrapnel, rocketed into the sky.

As the biting winter wind finally scattered the smoke, everyone present sucked in a sharp breath of freezing air. The massive, three-hundred-pound block of cast iron was gone. In its place was a scorched, blackened crater over five meters wide and two meters deep. Down at the bottom, the shattered remnants of the iron block were rapidly melting under the lingering, terrifying heat, reducing into pools of bubbling, glowing-red liquid slag that hissed and spewed choking black smoke.

"One strike... it melted heavy cast iron with a single strike," Ilya murmured, staring at her slightly numb hands, the residual recoil still tingling in her palms. Her face was a mask of absolute horror.

"This... with this kind of destructive power, even an Orc in full-plate steel armor would be vaporized entirely—armor and all!" But it wasn't just the jaw-dropping raw damage. What Soren valued most was its pinpoint accuracy. Ilya hadn't even exerted much effort to aim, yet the perfectly straight trajectory of the fireball proved that the wand possessed a spectacularly stable internal containment mechanism.

"Beautiful! Absolutely beautiful!" Soren threw his head back and laughed aloud, his eyes locked onto the smoldering crater. Countless tactical scenarios regarding modern infantry-artillery coordination and anti-armor warfare were rapidly compiling and reorganizing within his mind! In their past three defensive battles, Greywater Village's overlapping fire matrix had been undeniably fierce, but it still possessed a dangerous vulnerability: a lethal blind spot in its heavy-armor-penetration capabilities.

The repeating heavy crossbows wielded by the Black-Steel Elite and the Macedonian Phalanx, combined with the sheer durability of their [Dark Silver Armor], were more than enough to mow down ordinary greenskin Orcs in massive droves. However, according to the intelligence Alaric had brought back, Warchief Blackstone's thirty-thousand-strong main force included terrifying siege behemoths: [Ironclad Earth Dragons]!

These sub-dragon magical beasts exceeded ten meters in length, and Orcish blacksmiths had ruthlessly riveted two-inch-thick cast-iron armor plates directly onto their skulls and backs. They were essentially unsolvable, heavily armored juggernauts! And behind them were ten thousand thickly armored Pigman heavy infantry! Historically, when human armies faced Ironclad Earth Dragons, their only solution was to throw human heavy infantry into the meat grinder, sacrificing countless lives just to slow their momentum.

The alternative was the method Ilya had employed previously: braving extreme danger to close within a suicidal fifty-meter radius of the behemoth to execute a point-blank shot! Both methods invariably resulted in catastrophic casualties! But now? The emergence of this epoch-making, individual magical weapon directly elevated Greywater Village's firepower to an entirely new dimension!

Standing amidst the wildly swirling snow, Soren began to outline a deadly tactical simulation to Victor and Ilya, his tone dead serious.

"We no longer have to throw the lives of our soldiers away to halt a behemoth's charge! We will distribute these five wands to five highly mobile warriors who possess a faint affinity for mana—like the Half-Elf rangers under Ilya's command."

"When Warchief Blackstone's Ironclad Earth Dragons and Pigman vanguards breach the kill zone, these five will disperse, forming a three-dimensional, overlapping crossfire matrix!"

"Our heavy ballistas will continue to suppress their mid and rear lines. Meanwhile, from a perfectly safe distance of one hundred and fifty meters, this elite five-man fireteam will exclusively target the enemy's heavy armaments, or the eyes, joints, and side armor of the Earth Dragons. They will execute concentrated, rapid-fire bombardments!" It would be a scene of pure, unadulterated terror.

When the massive Ironclad Earth Dragons launched their arrogant, overwhelming charge toward Greywater Village, they wouldn't be met with desperate spearmen. Instead, they would be greeted by five instant-cast, hyper-thermal Pyroblasts erupting from hidden mud pits and the forest canopy! No matter how thick their cast-iron armor, under the explosive force of several thousand degrees of heat, those behemoths would do nothing but thrash madly as they melted into piles of smoldering ash in a sea of hellfire! Thud!

A heavy fall suddenly shattered the tense quiet of the forward observation post. Meyer, the Captain of Intelligence, practically crawled over the wooden chevaux-de-frise. The magical camouflage that usually enshrouded his body was rapidly fading, completely destabilized by severe physical exhaustion. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Quick! Take me to the Lord! It's a severe emergency!" Meyer coughed up a mouthful of blood, shoving away the sentry who had rushed over to support him. He stumbled frantically toward the command post in the center of the village. Inside the Greywater Village combat command post. Bang! The heavy wooden doors were violently shoved open. The freezing northern wind rushed into the room, violently flapping the edges of the tactical map on the table.

"My Lord!" Meyer dropped heavily to one knee. His violent, ragged gasps for air echoed loudly in the suddenly silent room. This human intelligence captain, famously known for his cold, unflappable demeanor in deep cover, now wore an expression of sheer, unadulterated terror on his pale face.

"Drink some hot liquor. Take your time and report." Soren didn't show the slightest hint of anger at Meyer's breach of composure. Instead, he personally poured a cup of strong, heated rum and handed it to him. Meyer downed the burning liquor in a single gulp, then snapped his head up.

"My Lord, Warchief Blackstone at Bloodfang Fortress has gone completely rabid! After City Lord Nak was killed, he completely discarded conventional tactics. He didn't wait for his infantry divisions. Instead, he directly mobilized exactly ten thousand Centaur warriors as his initial vanguard! They are blitzing forward at an astonishing speed of a hundred miles a day!" Ten thousand Centaur warriors! The moment that number dropped, a deathly silence smothered the command post.

The high-ranking officers—who had just been summoned to discuss the tactical distribution of the Pyroblast Wands and were riding a wave of intense euphoria—instantly felt their blood run cold. Soren's voice grew stern.

"Estimated time of arrival?"

"No later than the morning of the day after tomorrow! This blitzkrieg force didn't even bring supply wagons! The only rations they carry are chunks of dried meat slung over their flanks!" Meyer's voice was grim as he delivered the terrifying reality.

"My Lord, fellow commanders... Ten thousand highly mobile Centaurs, capable of firing armor-piercing heavy arrows while at a full, frenzied gallop. That kind of force is enough to completely annihilate the defensive line of any standard human border garrison in under an hour!"

"To be brutally honest, the territory of Greywater Village... has just entered the most critical survival crisis since its founding!" The tension in the room was palpable, thick enough to be cut with a knife. Under the flickering glow of the braziers, every single core commander of Greywater Village was present. Talon, the Commander of the Macedonian Phalanx, furrowed his thick brows, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword so tightly his knuckles turned white.

His vice-commander, Darion, subconsciously held his breath, his mind frantically simulating the catastrophic casualty rates his pikemen would suffer against a heavy cavalry-archer charge. Ein, the Longbow Captain, closed his eyes, mentally calculating the crushing range advantage the enemy possessed. Ilya, the Magic Ranger Captain, shifted uneasily. Buck, the Commander of the Wolf Cavalry, gritted his teeth.

His ninety-three Wolf Riders were elite, undeniably so—but against a tidal wave of ten thousand Centaurs, they would be swallowed whole before they could even make a dent. And Gary the Trap Captain, Victor the Chief Mage, Luger the Arsenal Master, Kyle the Chief of Logistics, and Fina the Chief of Finance... all stood there, their faces drained of color.

"Straighten your spines." Soren suddenly turned around. His voice was remarkably calm, carrying an unwavering, mountainous weight that instantly jolted every commander awake, violently shattering the creeping panic in the room. He stepped up to the tactical map. The tip of his refined steel longsword firmly tapped the boundary line of the Silvermoon Kingdom.

"Banish whatever pathetic slivers of false hope you might still harbor," Soren declared coldly.

"Do not expect a single reinforcement from the capital of the Silvermoon Kingdom! That Prince Regent is praying we get slaughtered by the Orc army so he can smoothly reclaim our military authority."

"And do not expect reinforcements from the Crimson Moon Knights either. Commander Leona is currently being crippled by draconian military orders from the capital. Her main camp is facing immense defensive pressure of their own." Hearing this, Finance Chief Fina sighed bitterly in her heart.

'It's true. Those pampered nobles sitting by their warm hearths in the capital only know how to point fingers at a map. Greywater Village is nothing but an expendable pawn, tossed into this rotting swamp and left to die. If we don't save ourselves, no one will.'

"All outside aid is cut off. But that does not mean we are just sitting here waiting to die." Soren slashed his longsword across the map, carving a tight circle around the territory of Greywater Village.

"Praise this godforsaken swamp," Soren sneered, his eyes gleaming with ruthless calculation.

"The atrocious terrain of the Misty Swamp is our strongest fortress line!"

"This land is littered with depressions oozing toxic miasma and highly acidic mud pits capable of swallowing heavy cavalry whole. I don't care how fast those Centaurs can run on their four legs—in this shattered, treacherous terrain, it is absolutely impossible for them to deploy the Arrowhead wedge formations they are so incredibly proud of!"