Chương 317: 317：A Humiliating Retreat

Thrum! Thrum! Thrum! Due to the terrifying, hyper-accelerated speed of his draw, Ein's fingers were actually sliced open by the bowstring, sending fresh blood spraying into the freezing wind. But in a mere two seconds, he had continuously fired three [Tri-Edged Armor-Piercing Broadheads] that shrieked through the air like the scythe of the Grim Reaper!

The first arrow, akin to a hyper-velocity shadow, flawlessly pierced the gargantuan Wyvern's wide, vertical slit-pupil in the exact microsecond its talons were about to crush the siege ballista!

"SKREEE!" The sudden, blinding agony caused the Wyvern's suicidal dive to violently veer off course, its blood-curdling shriek threatening to rupture the eardrums of everyone below. But the lethal sequence wasn't over! The second arrow followed instantly, ruthlessly drilling through the ruptured eye socket and sinking directly into the Wyvern's brain! And the fatal third arrow? Amidst a rain of scalding dragon blood, it skimmed along the beast's rock-hard neck scales at an impossible, parabolic arc.

With a sickening squelch, it deeply pierced the throat of the scar-faced Orc Wyvern Rider hiding on its back! The formidable Orc Captain didn't even have the time to let out a final grunt. His Adam's apple was violently pulverized by the broadhead, and his lifeless corpse was ripped from the saddle, plummeting from the sky. However! Even though the Wyvern was dead, the apocalyptic kinetic inertia it had accumulated during its hyper-velocity dive had not vanished! BOOM!

A gargantuan shadow, radiating a nauseating stench of blood and acid, skimmed mere inches above the top of Ein's helmet! The hyper-violent slipstream was so intense it actually flipped Ein off his feet, slamming him heavily into the muddy floor of the trench. The out-of-control, multi-ton Wyvern corpse completely overshot the forward anti-air ballista position. Relying on its staggering weight, it violently crashed into the open staging ground in the rear!

The earth quaked violently, sending a massive geyser of rotting mud rocketing into the sky!

"AGHHH!" Under the sheer force of its own momentum, the gargantuan beast skidded forward for over ten meters, effortlessly pulverizing the thick wooden barricades in its path. Several goblin engineers and human archers transporting ammunition couldn't dodge in time. They were viciously sent flying or crushed beneath the massive, leathery wings. A gruesome chorus of snapping bones and agonized screams instantly erupted from the rear echelons.

"Medical corps! Move! Save them!" Kyle, the Chief of Logistics, who had been on high alert in the rear, witnessed this terrifying scene. Without a shred of hesitation, he let out a rugged roar, leading dozens of logistics medics carrying heavy supply kits directly into the chaotic, mud-splattered impact zone. Relying on his innate [Brute Strength] talent, Kyle violently hoisted the mangled Wyvern wing off the crushed soldiers.

"Don't be afraid! The Lord has issued an absolute decree! Even if you suffer a mortal wound, we will drag you back from hell itself!" Kyle expertly pulled several [Battlefield First-Aid Potions]—each worth dozens of gold coins—from his belt, generously pouring the precious liquid directly into their mangled, bloodied wounds. Accompanied by a violent sizzling sound, the aggressively spurting blood was rapidly clotted.

Following closely behind, from the rear command post, Chief Mage Victor remotely cast a [Mass Healing Water Spell]. A soothing, azure glow gently descended upon the wounded, forcibly pulling them back from the absolute brink of death and miraculously preserving their lives. Meanwhile, back in the forward trenches. Ein coughed violently in the muddy water. The outer edge of the Wyvern's talons had carved a deep, glaring white gouge across the chest of his [Dark Silver Plate Armor].

The violent slipstream had dislocated his left arm, and a trickle of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. But, supported by a few of his soldiers, he endured the agonizing pain and stood tall once more. He was injured, yes, but his cold, stoic face radiated the unyielding, supreme pride of an apex predator.

"Captain Ein... he solo-killed a Wyvern!" The surrounding soldiers looked back at the gargantuan beast lying dead in the rear, then turned to stare at Ein, who was leaning proudly on his longbow. Their eyes erupted with an uncontrollable, burning worship! Solo-killing a high-tier Wyvern mid-dive... that was a miraculous feat usually reserved exclusively for Grand Knights or Archmages!

But today, relying on his transcendent archery and unflinching courage in the face of absolute death, Ein had proven the terrifying, undeniable strength of Greywater Village's commanders! In just two breathtaking rounds of high-intensity anti-air exchanges, the entire tide of battle had been fundamentally inverted. The Orc Alliance's proud Wyvern squadron had suffered catastrophic losses!

Out of the dozen-odd fierce Wyverns that had arrogantly taken to the sky, five had already been reduced to stiff, mangled corpses. Along with their elite riders, they were permanently entombed in this highly toxic swamp. The remaining Wyverns and Orc Riders were utterly paralyzed by absolute dread, entirely deterred by Greywater Village's three-dimensional, overlapping anti-air kill matrix! The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Monsters... they are a pack of monsters who don't fear death!" Having lost their Captain, the surviving Orc Riders plunged into an abyss of panic. Their eyes were wide with terror, not daring to cast even a single glance at the brutal meat-grinder of a defensive line below. No matter how unforgiving Warchief Blackstone's military decrees were, they absolutely refused to lower their altitude for any form of dive-bombing.

"Pull up! Pull up above the cloud cover! Quick!" The surviving Wyverns frantically thrashed their wings, desperately clawing their way up to a safe altitude of nearly four hundred meters. Unable to execute low-altitude precision strikes, these thoroughly panicked Riders were forced to execute blind, desperation carpet-bombing from the sky.

"Drop all the rocks! Just drop them and let's get out of this godforsaken place!" However, at an altitude of four hundred meters above the Misty Swamp, the air currents were exceptionally violent and chaotic. When those massive siege boulders detached from the Wyverns' talons, their supposedly straight falling trajectories were completely hijacked by the freezing, cross-shearing gales. The accuracy of this high-altitude bombardment was comically abysmal! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

A massive payload of boulders howled down from the heavens, but the vast majority plunged harmlessly into the rotting mud pits several hundred meters outside Greywater Village's defensive line, sending apocalyptic splashes of foul muck dozens of meters into the air. They completely failed to inflict a single ounce of substantive damage on Greywater Village's sturdy subterranean bunkers or its perfectly arrayed stilted longhouses. But what happened next was an absolute twist of bitter, comical irony.

Due to the ravaging gales, over a dozen millstone-sized boulders deviated so absurdly far off course that they actually rode the wind directly over Greywater Village's positions... plummeting squarely into the densely packed Centaur horde currently forming up to fire!

"What is that sound... rocks are falling from the sky! Dodge!" The Centaur army below had zero defense prepared against a bombardment from their own allies. SMASH! CRUNCH! A boulder plummeting from four hundred meters, carrying terrifying terminal velocity, scored a direct hit, violently pulverizing two burly Centaurs into bloody paste! The sickening crunch of shattering bone echoed clearly through the formation. Viscera and hot blood splashed all over the surrounding kin.

Immediately following, several more boulders crashed down, brutally snapping the legs of a dozen Centaur warriors and triggering a chaotic, localized stampede within the ranks.

"You brainless idiots in the sky! Are you blind?!"

"Damn Warchief Blackstone! Did he send these useless lizards just to crush our own people?!" The Centaur warriors, inexplicably suffering a friendly-fire bombardment, were already operating on a hair-trigger of rage. Now, seeing their own comrades brutally crushed to death by their supposed air support, their apocalyptic fury exploded. Ten thousand Centaurs stomped violently in the mud, raising their heavy bows and javelins toward the heavens.

They unleashed the absolute foulest, most venomous Orcish profanities imaginable, wildly cursing the Wyvern Riders. Even Warchief Blackstone, sitting safely in Bloodfang Fortress, became the target of their rabid vitriol. Finally. Amidst the miserable, bloody friendly-fire casualties and the deafening chorus of curses from below, the surviving Wyverns seemed to realize they had lost every last shred of their dignity. Letting out a few weak, pathetic cries, they awkwardly banked away.

Utterly humiliated, they tucked their tails and fled this terrifying airspace, disappearing into the distant, overcast horizon. In the far rear of the Centaur formation. Vice-Chieftain Luke did not join his kin in their rabid cursing. This middle-aged Centaur general, renowned for his calm tactical mind, currently felt his entire body turn to ice. His eyes were wide, brimming with a profound, bone-deep dread.

He had just witnessed the entire sequence of the Orc air force: from their arrogant provocation, to falling flawlessly for the trap, to their desperate brute-force dive, and finally, their miserable, catastrophic defeat.

"Too terrifying..." Luke's hands trembled slightly as he gripped his reins.

"Facing the threat of an aerial bombardment without a shred of panic... orchestrating a masterclass in psychological warfare with false intel to bait the Wyverns into lowering their altitude..."

"And then, at the absolute, lethal threshold... simultaneously detonating three entirely different dimensions of anti-air firepower..." Luke's mind obsessively replayed that flawlessly executed, three-dimensional overlapping kill box. The suffocating tightness, the icy calmness, and the mechanical precision displayed by Greywater Village's forces had once again violently shattered his understanding of human warfare.

"Not only is the quality of their individual soldiers terrifyingly high..." Luke muttered, a chill racing down his spine.

"They possess a supreme tactician! A commander capable of seeing through every microscopic detail of the battlefield and seamlessly focusing the absolute maximum lethality of his entire army!"