Chương 304: 304：Thirty Thousand vs. Two Thousand

Luke mustered his courage. Pointing a trembling finger at the seven thousand panting, exhausted kin trailing behind them, he spoke with bitter resentment.

"Furthermore... you know full well that Warchief Blackstone did not leave us a single wagon of supplies."

"He even forced us to bring unweaned cubs and elders who don't even have the strength to fully draw a bow! This is the Warchief's true scheme! He isn't bestowing the glory of the vanguard upon us at all!" Luke's chest heaved violently. Staring at Heka's broad back, he screamed the brutal truth of the situation in his own mind.

'Heka, you absolute fool! Blinded by a handful of immediate scraps! The Warchief is using the lives of the Centaur race to prematurely trigger traps and draw enemy fire for his main force!'

'In the eyes of a Warchief who worships nothing but siege behemoths and heavily armored Pigmen, it doesn't matter if you are three thousand prime elites or seven thousand elderly and frail. In the end, we are nothing more than ten thousand meat shields—sacrifices meant to drain Greywater Village's heavy ballistas of their bolts!' Luke gripped his reins so tightly his knuckles turned white.

A profound, seething rage burned within him at Warchief Blackstone's utter disregard for Centaur lives, but deeper still was a creeping dread toward the unknown, terrifying defenses waiting for them at Greywater Village. If they actually managed to win this battle in three days like Heka boasted, then fine. But if they failed... or if they got completely bogged down in the mire without a single grain of food?

If they lost these seven thousand elderly, females, and young—the very foundation of their tribe's future and reproduction—the entire Centaur race would suffer catastrophic, irreversible damage. They would be staring directly into the abyss of total extinction!

"Are you naturally this pathetic of a coward?!" Catching the hesitation in Luke's voice, Heka violently yanked his reins. The brutal rotational force of his sudden halt kicked up a massive spray of rotting mud, showering everything in a several-meter radius. He turned his ferociously scarred face, glaring murderously at Luke. The spiked flail in his grip rattled menacingly.

"Shut your damn mouth before you ruin morale! I don't care what the Warchief is thinking! In the face of absolute, overwhelming power, any pathetic traps built by humans are a joke! As long as we are the first to breach that village and seize their grain, every single sacrifice will be worth it!"

"Relay my orders! The entire tribe accelerates! Even if they have to snap their own legs, I want us charging up the northern slope of that godforsaken village before dawn the day after tomorrow!" Heka's tyrannical roar echoed across the desolate wasteland. Overcome with anguish, Luke could do nothing but snap his jaw shut and lower his head. Meanwhile, far away within the Holy Halycon Empire. At the Northern Defensive Line Command Headquarters: Megalith Fortress.

The massive stone citadel stood tall amidst the howling blizzard, its sheer walls acting as an unbreakable shield against the apocalyptic cold ravaging the wasteland. Inside the command center. BANG! Accompanied by a violent crash, the heavy oak doors of the grand hall were forcefully shoved open. A scout knight belonging to the Royal Griffon Regiment stumbled frantically into the room. His chainmail was entirely crusted in thick icicles.

Flying through brutal blizzards at several thousand meters in altitude for consecutive days had left his face bruised and covered in horrific, purple frostbite. He was so physically drained that the moment he crossed the threshold, his legs gave out entirely, and he collapsed heavily to his knees. But he couldn't care less about his injuries. Using his stiff, frostbitten fingers, he violently yanked a sealed parchment scroll from his breastplate and roared at the top of his lungs:"Grand Duke! General Marr!

Ultimate emergency! The Orc Alliance at the Misty Swamp... they have initiated a total mobilization!" Standing before the massive strategic sand table, the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Northern Frontier, Grand Duke Valentine, whipped around. Beside him, the Empire's Chief Strategist, General Marr, dashed forward. He snatched the parchment from the half-conscious knight's grip and ruthlessly tore open the wax seal. His eyes swept over the first half of the parchment.

Suddenly, this legendary imperial tactician—a man famously renowned for maintaining absolute composure in the face of deadly peril—began to tremble violently. General Marr sucked in a sharp, hissing breath of cold air. The ruddy color completely drained from his face, leaving him deathly pale.

"This... how is this even possible? Blackstone, that absolute lunatic!" General Marr exclaimed, his voice cracking with sheer horror.

"What is it?! Read it!" Grand Duke Valentine barked, striding over to the section of the sand table representing the Misty Swamp, his eyes locked onto the terrain models. General Marr swallowed heavily, his hands still shaking. Syllable by syllable, he read aloud the intelligence bought with blood and frostbite:"Grand Duke... the Royal Griffon aerial scouts detected movement above Bloodfang Fortress. Warchief Blackstone has deployed his entire main force!"

"He has massed a staggering thirty thousand ace vanguard troops! This includes fully organized legions of Tauren shock troops, Pigman heavy infantry, and even siege behemoths—the Ironclad Earth Dragons!"

"The intelligence indicates that exactly ten thousand Centaur warriors have already been deployed as a blitzkrieg vanguard. They are currently surging southward at an apocalyptic speed of a hundred miles a day!" Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. General Marr slowly raised his head, staring at the Grand Duke in absolute disbelief.

"The marching trajectory for all thirty thousand troops is completely uniform. Their target is aimed directly at the heart of the Misty Swamp... at Soren's territory, Greywater Village!" BOOM! Those exact numbers and that specific target struck Grand Duke Valentine like a physical blow.

"Thirty thousand elites?! Just to obliterate a godforsaken, ramshackle village that hasn't even existed for half a year?!" Grand Duke Valentine let out a harsh, incredulous laugh born of pure fury. Both Valentine and Marr understood the horrifying military implications behind this maneuver all too well. Thirty thousand Orc elites! On the continent of Aeresia, this was a force capable of going toe-to-toe with a hundred thousand human regulars on an open plain!

It was a terrifying power fully capable of butchering every citizen of a mid-sized human duchy and wiping it off the map entirely! Yet now, Warchief Blackstone was taking this nation-destroying army and pouring it entirely upon Greywater Village—a territory with a total population barely exceeding two thousand! It was a test of survival with a disparity in forces so staggering it defied all military logic!

"This is a war of absolute annihilation. Cost is completely irrelevant to him," General Marr muttered, slumping back heavily into his chair.

"Warchief Blackstone clearly intends to pay whatever price is necessary. He is fully willing to let ten thousand Centaurs literally run themselves to death in the mire, just to enact his revenge and slaughter Greywater Village's forces."

"He isn't planning on giving Soren a single, microscopic chance to break the siege," Grand Duke Valentine said, his expression turning exceedingly ugly. He began pacing back and forth furiously in front of the strategic sand table. The two veteran commanders quickly dove into a deep tactical analysis of the unfolding crisis.

"Grand Duke," General Marr said, drawing a massive, highly disproportionate circle around the tiny marker representing Greywater Village. His voice was laced with profound awe.

"Look back through the hundreds of years of military history between our Holy Halycon Empire and the Orc Alliance. The Orcs mobilizing tens of thousands of elite troops to besiege an isolated human territory possessing barely two thousand souls... In all of our military records and operational ledgers, such a thing is unprecedented. It's downright absurd!" General Marr couldn't help but sigh heavily.

"Historically, how have battlefield engagements played out? Severely restricted by the sheer disadvantage of human physical strength and individual combat prowess, our armies have always had to rely on deploying heavy infantry phalanxes three—even five—times the size of the enemy's force. We had to literally feed bodies into the meat grinder just to barely withstand an Orcish charge."

General Marr pressed his finger firmly onto the tiny red dot of Greywater Village, his tone shifting into one of pure, unadulterated admiration.

"But look at it now! The dynamic has undergone an unimaginable reversal! Soren, a mere young man, has actually terrified the arrogant Orc Alliance so thoroughly that they are forced to mass ten times his numbers before they even dare to strike at him!" Hearing this, Grand Duke Valentine fell into a deep silence. Soren's consecutive string of impossible victories flashed through his mind.

The decapitation strike on the City Lord of Abysswater Keep, the total severance of their logistical lifelines, the pitfall slaughter of the Oracle Envoy... Using utterly unpredictable, highly specialized unconventional tactics, Soren had brutally beaten severe psychological trauma directly into Warchief Blackstone! This meant that the upper echelons of the Orc Alliance had developed a profound, paralyzing terror toward the terrifying tactical execution and rapid expansion of Greywater Village's forces!

They were scared! And because they were scared, they were desperately trying to use absolute brute force and overwhelming numbers to steamroll the threat before it could grow any further!

"I refuse to sit back and watch Soren be crushed within the Misty Swamp!" Grand Duke Valentine abruptly halted his pacing. Slamming both hands firmly back onto the edge of the sand table, his expression turned intensely resolute.

"Marr! Relay my absolute military decree immediately!" Valentine violently drew the heavy broadsword from his waist and slammed the blade directly into the sand table.

"Mobilize the Third and Seventh Heavy Infantry Legions! Furthermore, order the entire Royal Griffon Regiment into the sky on standby! I am dispatching immediate reinforcements to Greywater Village!"

"Grand Duke, you cannot! I beg you, maintain your rationality!" Hearing this absolute decree, General Marr shot out of his chair in pure terror. Completely disregarding the strict bounds of imperial hierarchy, he grabbed Valentine's sword-wielding arm, his face frantic.

"Look at the intelligence reports! To rashly deploy our forces at this juncture is tantamount to sending the Empire's elites to die a completely meaningless death!" General Marr rapidly traced his finger along the outer perimeter of the sand table, jabbing specifically at several crucial chokepoints.

"The scouts report that the outer cordons of the Orcs' hundred-thousand-strong army have already completely barricaded every single plains passage leading into the Misty Swamp! Every single route is locked down by massive concentrations of heavy Orc infantry! Furthermore..."