Chương 32: 32：Textbook Folly

The Son of Titan didn't take a single step back. It didn't even blink. It raised a palm the size of a tabletop, clenching its thick fingers into a massive, meaty fist. Dragging a howling gale of air pressure with it, the fist slammed directly into the dead center of a forged-steel kite shield. BOOM! The violent, ear-piercing shriek of twisting metal rent the air. The center of the kite shield instantly caved in, leaving a profound fist-shaped crater in the steel.

Behind the shield, the infantryman's elbow joints snapped with a sickening crack. Jagged bone splinters pierced through his flesh, jutting out into the open air. The monstrous force sent the soldier flying backward, bowling over three of his comrades in the rear ranks. Their bodies were instantly crushed into a bloody pulp. A brutal, one-sided massacre had officially begun. The Son of Titan plowed into the sword-and-shield formation. Longswords hacked furiously at its arms, only to bounce off in showers of sparks.

Opening its massive hand, the beast grabbed an infantryman directly by the helmet. Its fingers simply squeezed. The screech of deforming iron rang out. The head inside popped like an overripe berry, blood spraying wildly through the gaps in the monster's fingers. Driven mad by terror, several infantrymen frantically thrust their short swords into the back of the monster's thighs. The blades barely bit into the flesh.

But the beast—whose pain receptors had been entirely severed by magic—merely reached down and grabbed one of the soldiers by the ankle, hoisting him upside down. Fueled by hundreds of pounds of raw, brute force, the infantryman was turned into a living warhammer. The Son of Titan swung the human body like a club, sweeping it through the surrounding ranks. Armor smashed against armor, skulls shattered against skulls.

In less than two minutes, the Second Battalion's defensive line was pounded into a field of minced meat. The ground was littered with snapped spears, caved-in breastplates, and bisected torsos twitching in the muddy water. Outside the fortress gates, atop a dead red mangrove tree. Zagar leaned heavily on his staff. Beneath his hood, two pinpricks of green fire locked onto Galahad, who stood on a raised platform three hundred meters away. The human commander, clad in ornate plate armor, was roaring orders.

He relentlessly threw his reserves into the fray, desperately trying to plug the gaps in the defensive line with phalanxes and spear walls. It was the classic, rigidly textbook war of attrition taught in the military academies of the Silvermoon Kingdom. The corner of Zagar's eye twitched with cold amusement. No poison. No snipers firing arrows from the shadows. No meticulously calculated tactics.

The commander here was like a squawking rooster, merely throwing the lives of his soldiers into the meat grinder to bridge the gap in sheer power. This was absolutely not the highly mysterious commander who had managed to outsmart a High Shaman, orchestrate a poisoning, and ruthlessly use captured heavy repeating crossbows for suppressive fire.

"Idiot, " the old priest scoffed, his voice dripping with contempt. A plume of black mist began to seep from the base of his staff. If he had the wrong man, capturing this fortress was utterly meaningless. Zagar had zero interest in laying siege to castles or conquering territory. He had only one target: that mysterious, small-scale elite unit. He slammed the butt of his staff heavily against the tree trunk. A high-frequency pulse of magical resonance rippled over the fortress walls.

Inside the fortress, the ten Sons of Titan—who were currently tearing the Third Garrison Battalion to pieces—suddenly froze. One of the monsters tossed aside the bisected corpse of an infantry captain and casually flicked the brain matter from the back of its hand. In perfect unison, the beasts turned. Abandoning their slaughter without a second thought, they marched their massive legs forward, plunging straight back into the sprawling, dense fog. This left only Galahad standing on the high platform.

As he stared down at the tragically mutilated remains of over fifty of his men, the hand gripping his broadsword began to shake violently. Galahad descended from the platform, his boots sinking into ankle-deep, bloody mud. The overwhelming stench of gore flooded his nostrils, mixed with the freezing downpour of rain. Torches, jammed into shattered wooden stakes, cast a flickering light over the field of corpses.

Dozens of infantrymen lay dead, their bodies scattered between the barricades and the shattered front gate. They looked like a nest of beetles that had been violently stomped to paste. Helmets were crumpled flat. Breastplates were severely caved in. Splintered bones jutted out through ripped chainmail. Pushing aside two officers who tried to support him, Galahad waded into the center of what used to be the Second Battalion's formation. He bent down and hoisted a discarded kite shield.

A crater-like fist print was stamped directly into its center, the steel edges completely torn open. It was the result of pure, crushing, unarmed force.

"Have you searched the area?" Galahad asked, his voice low.

"We have, my Lord, " replied his pale-faced adjutant trailing behind him." We've swept the grounds three times. They didn't leave a single Greenskin corpse behind. We haven't even found... a single drop of the enemy's green blood." Over fifty heavy spear-and-shield infantrymen, and they hadn't managed to draw a single drop of blood. Humiliation. Suffocating frustration. And a profound, sickening chill that shot from the soles of his boots straight up his spine.

According to the military texts of the Silvermoon Kingdom, Greenskin Orcs were supposed to be impulsive, chaotic beasts that relied purely on overwhelming numbers. Yet the small squad before them—consisting of only eleven figures—had utterly dismantled the battle formations humanity took so much pride in.

"My Lord, the Third Royal Guard Cavalry Squadron has saddled their mounts. Please grant us permission to pursue them! They can't have gotten far..." A young knight dropped to one knee, his eyes bloodshot with grief and rage. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Shut your mouth!" Galahad roared, fiercely hurling the mangled kite shield into the mud. Filthy water splashed across the young knight's face.

"Pursue them so you can die too?! You want to hack at their rock-like skin with your sabers when full-length spears couldn't even pierce them?!" Galahad panted heavily, forcefully swallowing the metallic taste of blood rising in his throat. Turning around, he began barking orders.

"Open the reserve armory!"

"Bring out all the defensive barricades and completely blockade the main gates!"

"Go to the towers and wake up every single battle-mage. I don't care how many mana crystals it costs, I want perimeter alarm wards and Mire Spells cast around the entire fortress!"

"Contract our defensive lines. Tonight, if any living creature steps within three hundred paces of this fortress, do not ask for a password. Shoot to kill." Galahad tilted his head up, staring deeply into the black, rain-swept night. At that exact moment, twenty kilometers to the north. Deep within the Mist Swamp, even the moonlight was entirely swallowed by the toxic miasma. Sixty-five dark silhouettes sliced through the thick fog. No one spoke a word.

They carried two-and-a-half-meter-long armor-piercing halberds. The blades were caked in black mud to prevent any reflection, and the butt of each shaft was tightly wrapped in rags to muffle any accidental clattering. Their boots were fitted with specially treated, soft-vine soles. They moved with practiced stealth: toes touching the ground first, heels rolling down softly. Fifty paces ahead lay an Orc logging camp. A few Imps were sprawled over the wooden fences, snoring loudly.

Soren walked on the flank of the formation, his gaze sweeping over his men. Their ranks were tight, their footsteps perfectly synchronized. Even the rhythm of their breathing had been deliberately slowed. The presence of these sixty-five men blended flawlessly into the darkness, as imperceptible as rotting logs sinking into the swamp. Not a single Orc realized that a crack unit of human elites had just brushed right past them, a mere fifty paces from their tents.

The unit bypassed the logging camp and continued their march north. Taking the point as the vanguard scouts were Ein and Gary. Suddenly, Ein halted his advance. Without turning his head, he simply raised his left arm parallel to the ground and pressed his palm backward. Ten paces behind him, Gary immediately dropped flat, pressing his face directly into the muck. Receiving the silent command, the sixty-plus men in the rear dropped to the ground in perfect unison, cascading like dominoes into the underbrush.

A musky, foul odor drifted through the air, mixed with the distinct, rancid stench of Orcish grease. Slap. Slap. It was the heavy, wet sound of massive, meaty paws treading through the mud. Gary gently parted the dead grass in front of his eyes. Thirty paces away, in a clearing at the edge of the tree line, two Wargs—each easily over two meters long—were walking with their snouts to the ground, actively tracking a scent. Straddling the Wargs were two Black Iron Orc scouts.

Gripping recurve bone-bows, their eyes swept the surroundings with palpable boredom. Lying prone in a puddle, Ein moved his right hand with agonizing slowness toward his back, sliding a grayish-black javelin free from his harness. Gary smoothly rolled into a nearby drainage ditch. Reaching into the leather pouch at his waist, he pulled out a thick, incredibly tough strangler vine, heavily modified with cruel barbs. He looped both ends firmly around his hands.

The two Wargs, one leading and the other trailing, plodded toward the center of the clearing. Ein's pupils dilated slightly in the darkness. His [Natural Hunter] and [Calm] Talents triggered simultaneously. The very instant the lead Warg's front paw sloshed into a mud pit, the muscles in Ein's back exploded with tension. With no running start, completely flat on his stomach, he generated an insane amount of torque simply by twisting his core. Whoosh! The javelin tore through the air.

The first Warg didn't even have time to lift its head before the spear tip punched cleanly through its skull! The shaft buried itself to the hilt directly into the beast's brain stem. The Warg let out a single, muffled choke before its massive body crashed lifelessly to the ground. The Orc rider was violently thrown forward by the momentum. The second he hit the dirt, Ein was already pouncing on him like a hunting leopard.

Gripping a short dagger in a reverse grip with both hands, Ein sank the blade straight through the Orc's windpipe and viciously twisted the hilt. The moment bloody froth bubbled from the dying Orc's throat, the second Warg in the rear bared its fangs and let out a vicious snarl. But the split-second it opened its maw to howl, a spray of mud erupted right next to its paws. Gary vaulted out of the muck. The barbed strangler vine lashed out, perfectly snaring both of the Warg's front legs.

Using the full deadweight of his falling body, Gary violently yanked backward! CRACK! The Warg's forelegs snapped instantly. The beast's massive frame tumbled forward in a chaotic roll. The second Orc scout roared, drawing a bone machete as he scrambled to his feet. But he was facing a guerrilla warfare genius whose hatred for Orcs burned hotter than hellfire. Gary slammed his entire body into the Orc's guard. His left hand clamped down like a vise on the Orc's weapon wrist.

Meanwhile, his right elbow—fueled by the frenzied strength granted by Troll Serum—smashed brutally into the Orc's armpit. Half of the Orc's body went completely numb. Before it could even utter a scream, Gary scooped up a handful of filthy muck and shoved it straight into the Orc's mouth. Without missing a beat, he followed up with a devastating uppercut right to the jaw. The jawbone unhinged with a sickening pop. In the span of less than ten breaths: One Warg was dead. One Orc scout had his throat crushed.

One Orc was taken alive. And the remaining Warg, its legs broken, was swiftly put out of its misery. Clean. Efficient. And executed without making a single sound louder than the falling rain.