Chương 318: 318：Futile Volleys

Centaur Chieftain Heka stared at the airspace above Greywater Village's defensive line, his breathing coming in ragged, rapid gasps. Just moments ago, he had witnessed it with his own eyes. The Wyvern squadron—the ultimate aerial force he believed could effortlessly crush any human defense—had been blown into a shower of pulverized meat and blood by Greywater Village's anti-air matrix!

"W-what in the name of the ancestors is this defensive line?!" Heka's originally arrogant, contemptuous expression had completely vanished, replaced entirely by horror and creeping cowardice. He was terrified. For countless years, whenever the Centaurs faced human border garrisons on the open plains, all it took was a single, simple charge to trample those frail soldiers and their pathetic wooden shields into bloody pulp.

But now, staring down a dilapidated, ramshackle village completely devoid of stone walls, an uncontrollable, suffocating terror actually took root in Heka's heart.

"Chieftain... are we still executing a direct charge?" several Centurions beside him asked, their voices trembling.

"Charge? Charge in there just to throw our lives away?!" To mask the cowardice festering in his own heart, Heka wildly swung his spiked flail, his voice cracking as he unleashed a hoarse roar.

"Urgar's five hundred elites didn't even scratch their skin before they were butchered! Even the Wyverns were shot out of the sky! Do you want to throw the entire tribe into that godforsaken meat grinder of heavy bolts?!" Heka turned his mount around. Facing the sprawling, ten-thousand-strong Centaur army that stretched for miles, he issued a highly conservative military directive:"All forces, hear my command! Hold your ground! Draw your bows with every last ounce of your strength, and empty your quivers!"

"Do not charge! Stay just outside their maximum effective range, and completely splinter their wooden huts to ash! I want those monsters hiding in the trenches turned into pincushions!" This was a tactical choice dictated entirely by fear. Since they didn't dare engage in brutal close-quarters combat, they would leverage the sheer, apocalyptic volume of ten thousand Centaurs to execute a long-range war of attrition!

"Fire! Pour everything you have into them!" Creaaak! Creaaak! Urged on by their commanders, ten thousand heavy longbows, strung with thick magical beast sinew, were forcefully drawn to a full moon by monstrous strength. Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh-swoosh! The synchronized release of ten thousand taut bowstrings merged into a single, deafening, earth-shaking roar. Immediately after, tens of thousands of heavy, raw-iron Orcish arrows tore through the air with a scalp-numbing shriek.

The impossibly dense volley instantly blotted out the sky, raining down upon Greywater Village's primary defensive line like a localized apocalypse! Thwack! Thwack! Thud! The impossibly dense storm of arrows violently hammered every single inch of Greywater Village's forward positions. The wooden chevaux-de-frise were instantly turned into pincushions. The hardened, frozen earth was brutally plowed into countless craters by the thick arrowheads.

The entire expanse directly in front of the primary defensive line was densely carpeted with black-fletched arrows, their shafts vibrating wildly in the wind. It was a spectacular, horrifying sight. But did this apocalyptic, ten-thousand-man saturation bombardment actually achieve anything? Deep underground beneath Greywater Village, within the zigzagging, highly complex anti-siege tunnel network...

The second-line pikemen and fourth-echelon logistics personnel sat quietly, leaning against the dry earth walls heavily reinforced by thick logs. From directly above them came the constant, muffled thud-thud-thud of heavy arrows burying themselves into the dirt. A faint shower of loose soil occasionally trickled down through the cracks of the heavy timber ceilings. One Half-Elf woman assigned to logistics even had the leisure to calmly wrap her child's padded coat a little tighter.

The subterranean defensive matrix—which Soren had ruthlessly forced the entire village's military and civilian populace to excavate a full month in advance—was now performing a miraculous role as an absolute sanctuary! Not only that, but even the handful of elite sentries stationed in the forward trenches to monitor enemy movements remained entirely unscathed.

Relying on the deep cover of their bunkers, and the dual, overlapping protection of their [Dark Silver Armor] and thick [Padded Cotton Armor]—which were fully capable of shrugging off raw iron arrowheads—they didn't suffer a single scratch. This seemingly apocalyptic storm of tens of thousands of arrows had, exactly like the vanguard's prior volley, completely failed to inflict even a microscopic sliver of substantive damage upon Greywater Village's main defensive forces.

"What a moronic waste of firepower." From behind a heavily concealed bunker, Luger—the Hobgoblin Arsenal Master and Engineering Captain—was peering through a narrow observation slit, coldly watching the insanely dense rain of arrows.

"Captain Luger! These horse-men are too damn arrogant! Let our trebuchets show them what real artillery looks like!" Several young goblin engineers, covering their long ears to muffle the deafening impacts outside, were seething with indignation. Gripping their heavy wooden firing mallets, they couldn't help but yell, desperate to return fire.

"Shut your mouths! Take your stupid hands off the firing levers!" Luger violently spun around. He viciously slapped the back of the lead goblin's head, sending the whelp stumbling forward. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. This burly, towering Hobgoblin currently displayed a chilling level of calmness and restraint completely at odds with his brutish exterior.

"You brainless, idiotic whelps! Do you even know what a tactical window is?!" Luger lowered his voice into a dangerous growl, baring a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth as he severely reprimanded his subordinates.

"That Centaur horde is currently halted over two kilometers away! Yes, our trebuchets have the range to hit them, but right now, their formation is spread incredibly thin to maximize their volley fire! If we open fire now, a few boulders will just crush a dozen-odd Centaurs at best!" He patiently calculated the distances from the shadows, his mind operating with cold, ruthless precision.

"Worse still, our trebuchet battery is Greywater Village's hidden trump card! If we fire prematurely and expose our precise coordinates, those Centurions will instantly redirect their apocalyptic arrow storm to execute targeted suppression fire! Our wooden siege engines absolutely cannot withstand the concentrated bombardment of tens of thousands of raw-iron arrows!"

"So, keep your damn hands to yourselves and hold it in!" Luger snapped his head back, his piercing gaze locking onto the distant enemy formation.

"Wait until they exhaust themselves. Wait until they arrogantly believe we've all been slaughtered. Wait until they condense back into their proud, tightly-packed charging formation! That is the perfect tactical window for your grandpa Luger to send them straight to hell!" An agonizingly long half-hour ticked by. The apocalyptic rain of arrows sweeping across the wasteland finally began to thin, eventually grinding to a complete halt.

After executing such high-intensity, continuous volley fire, the ten thousand Centaur warriors' arms were severely swollen and burning with lactic acid, bordering on total numbness. Their massive, over-the-shoulder quivers were completely empty. The entire battlefield plunged into a deathly silence. Greywater Village's defensive line remained eerily quiet. There wasn't even the slightest microscopic movement, as if every single living creature within had been entirely wiped out.

Two kilometers away in the rear staging ground, Heka greedily surveyed the dilapidated village, which was now entirely carpeted in a thick layer of black arrows. Within Heka's limited, primitive understanding of warfare, he fundamentally refused to believe that any army could survive a saturation bombardment of tens of thousands of heavy arrows.

"Hahahaha! They're all dead! Every last one of them! Those despicable human dogs have definitely been pulverized into bloody meat!" Heka's arrogance and blinding greed once again completely overpowered his rationality. He mistakenly believed that Greywater Village's forces had been completely annihilated by the dense arrow storm. The creeping dread of the unknown that had gripped him earlier vanished like smoke, instantly replaced by a rabid, ravenous hunger for overflowing granaries and human slaves.

He violently hoisted his spiked flail high into the air, issuing the ultimate attack order to his Vice-Chieftain, Luke:"Luke! What the hell are you waiting for?! There isn't a single soul left breathing on that defensive line! Lead your elite warriors and charge! Trample those pathetic wooden barricades into dust! Seize all their supplies, and drag any half-dead humans back here in chains!" Hearing this absolute decree, Commander Luke furrowed his brow so deeply it formed a harsh knot.

This traditionally cautious, middle-aged general stared at the eerily, unnaturally quiet defensive line ahead, a profound, suffocating sense of unease coiling tightly around his heart. There had been no agonized screams during the bombardment. There was no panicked, chaotic rout. This was entirely abnormal! Yet, under Heka's murderous, overbearing glare, and strictly bound by the ruthless, hierarchical military laws of the Orcs, Luke possessed absolutely zero room to refuse.

If he dared to utter a single word of dissent, Heka's spiked flail would mercilessly cave his skull in without a second thought.

"As you command, Chieftain." Luke viciously gritted his teeth. Drawing the heavy cavalry saber from his waist, he thrust it violently toward the overcast sky.

"The strongest two thousand five hundred warriors in the army—step forward! Ride with me!" Accompanied by Luke's booming roar, two thousand five hundred ferociously muscled Centaur elites thundered out from the main formation. They gripped thick, raw-iron javelins and heavy sabers in their hands, their wild, coarse manes whipping fiercely in the blizzard. This was the absolute core shock troop of the Centaur tribe—a genuine, apocalyptic vanguard!

"For the glory of the tribe! KILL!" RUMBLE! Following that blood-curdling roar, the signature, world-shaking tactic of the Centaur race—the Mass Envelopment Charge—officially erupted across the muddy wasteland! The two thousand five hundred Centaur elites formed a sprawling, seemingly unstoppable tidal wave of flesh and steel. Radiating an apocalyptic momentum, they blitzed relentlessly toward Greywater Village's primary defensive line! The earth quaked violently. Fountains of rotting mud skyrocketed into the air!

In this first wave of their ground offensive, the Centaurs displayed an absolute, overwhelming advantage in both sheer numbers and charging velocity. Their massive iron hooves viciously trampled the mire; every single stride generated explosive, kinetic thrust. Pushing their speed to the absolute limit and carrying a suffocating, sky-piercing aura of oppression, they devoured several hundred meters of distance in a fraction of a second!