Chương 320: 320：The Warlord's Frontline

Soren stood atop the watchtower behind the defensive line, coldly overlooking the carnage below.

"Centaurs... the apex predators of the Aeresia Continent, universally renowned for their peerless mobility," Soren whispered in his mind.

"But the moment a race so entirely reliant on open terrain and hyper-velocity charges plummets into a heavily congested, three-meter-deep trench..."

"Their gargantuan physiques instantly transform into suffocating shackles. Those four long legs they are so intensely proud of? Wedged against the trench walls, they lose every last microscopic inch of leverage." Soren slowly drew the refined steel longsword from his waist, the tip of the blade glinting ominously in the freezing wind. This signaled one thing: the absolute, critical turning point of the battle had arrived! The fiercely powerful Centaur vanguard...

the microsecond they crashed into that pit, their terrifying mobility was completely erased. Right here, right now, within this five-hundred-meter-wide abyss, these once wildly arrogant alien elites had been reduced to absolutely immobile, defenseless meat targets waiting to be butchered! Clack! In perfect, unspoken synchronization, over a thousand second-line pikemen raised their [Repeating Heavy Crossbows] once more.

The five-hundred-meter expanse directly in front of the defensive line had already devolved into a grotesque mire of countless dead and dying. The unveiling of the massive, interconnected trapdoor trench network had forced the charging Centaurs to pay an unimaginably agonizing price. However, ruthlessly driven forward by the execution squads in their rear, this gargantuan alien horde had absolutely no avenue of retreat.

"Trample their corpses! Fill the pit! Keep charging!" Centaur Centurions roared at the top of their lungs from the rear, wildly swinging their blood-drenched sabers. The Centaur warriors who had miraculously avoided plummeting into the abyss, their eyes burning with a rabid crimson hue, actually did it. They mercilessly trampled over the still-twitching, agonizingly paralyzed bodies of their own kin at the bottom of the pit, brutally paving a pathway of flesh and blood!

"Fire! Do not stop!" Down in the trenches, military orders were absolute. Over a thousand repeating heavy crossbows erupted in a relentless, deafening mechanical chorus. Thick, armor-piercing bolts effortlessly reaped Centaur lives in massive droves. Every single second, gargantuan equine bodies crashed heavily into the charging muck. Enduring Greywater Village's suffocating, hyper-violent crossfire upon this completely exposed slope, the surviving Centaur horde paid the catastrophic toll of nearly a thousand dead.

Only then did they finally, agonizingly manage to trample over the mountains of their comrades' corpses to breach the two-hundred-meter death line. In that singular moment, the entire paradigm of the war violently shifted! Before the brutal melee could even begin, both sides engaged in an apocalyptic, close-quarters firefight!

"Spread the formation! Shoot them all!" The thousand-plus Centaur elites charging at the absolute front finally displayed exactly why they were universally feared as the Aeresia Continent's apex mobile troop. They did not decelerate. Instead, relying on peerless equestrian mastery, they forcefully tore open a wide, horizontal skirmisher line right through the thick mud. Their massive hooves thundered in a frenzied gallop, yet their fiercely muscled upper torsos remained terrifyingly stable. Creaaak! Creaaak!

Countless heavy bows, strung with magical beast sinew, were drawn to a full moon in perfect unison. Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh-swoosh! This impossibly dense volley of raw-iron heavy arrows was no longer a high-altitude parabolic bombardment. Following flat, hyper-velocity trajectories, they viciously slammed directly into Greywater Village's trench bunkers! CLANG! TING! THWACK-THWACK-THWACK! Deafening impacts exploded continuously across the defensive line.

Packing terrifying kinetic force, the Centaur arrows ruthlessly buried themselves into the heavy logs of the barricades, sending lethal wooden shrapnel flying in all directions. Some arrows even punched straight through the outer dirt berms of the trenches, violently grazing the helmets of the defenders and igniting blinding showers of sparks. Faced with this rabid, galloping archer assault, Greywater Village's second-line defenders were plunged into their first true crucible.

"Do not duck! Keep your eyes locked dead ahead! Do not stop firing!" Talon, Commander of the Macedonian Phalanx, roared with volcanic fury. Standing personally at the absolute lip of the trench, he viciously wiped a smear of blood from his cheek—a cut from flying wooden shrapnel—and barked his orders. Beside him, Vice-Commander Darion paced the left wing with icy calm.

"Three-man fireteams! Leapfrog your reloads! Ignore the incoming arrows—trust the armor on your backs!" Driven by an absolute, unyielding desire to protect Greywater Village—the sanctuary that had finally granted them human dignity—these second-line pikemen erupted with a staggering, unbreakable will to fight! They completely ignored the heavy arrows violently clanging against their [Dark Silver Half-Plate].

Even as the kinetic shockwaves bruised their ribs and made their blood boil, they relentlessly, obsessively pulled the triggers of their heavy crossbows. The mechanical clack of winches and the violent thrum of bowstrings fused into an apocalyptic symphony. Greywater Village's trenches continuously vomited a hyper-violent storm of steel, turning sweeping swathes of Centaurs—both mount and rider—into mangled pincushions. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Meanwhile, at the absolute highest vantage point of the battlefield—Greywater Village's wooden watchtowers—an entirely different style of warfare was unfolding.

"Wind speed level three, southeasterly crosswind, adjust trajectory by two inches." Ein, the Master Marksman and Longbow Captain, half-kneeled atop the tower, his breathing so slow it was virtually non-existent. In stark contrast to the saturation suppression fire of the trenches below, a cold, lethal light bloomed in his eyes—the activation of his [Natural Hunter] talent.

His piercing gaze effortlessly cut through the chaotic battlefield, locking onto a Centaur Centurion who was currently rearing back a heavy javelin to shatter a section of chevaux-de-frise. Thrum! A [Tri-Edged Armor-Piercing Broadhead] shrieked through the air. Before the Centurion could even release his weapon, the silver flash flawlessly bypassed his guard, punching straight through the narrow gap of his eye socket and violently blending his brain into paste.

"Whispers of the Wind, rend them!" Atop the opposing watchtower, emerald light swirled in the eyes of the Half-Elf Commander, Ilya. Under her precise command, her one hundred and thirty Magic Rangers exclusively fired cyan-tinted [Wind-Blade Enchanted Arrows], targeting the absolute thickest, most aggressive nodes of the Centaur charge. BOOM! Wind magic violently detonated within the enemy ranks.

Swarms of invisible, razor-sharp wind blades instantly, brutally dismembered dozens of vanguard Centaurs into showers of bloody gore! This surgical, high-altitude execution of enemy officers sent the morale of the defenders below skyrocketing, triggering endless waves of bloodthirsty cheers. Every single time an enemy commander collapsed, the Centaur offensive suffered a momentary, disjointed stutter. However, fueled by a gargantuan pool of lives, the final hundred-meter gap was rapidly swallowed up.

The apocalyptic, brutal reality of close-quarters melee combat finally erupted directly behind the frontline chevaux-de-frise!

"They're here! Brace for impact!" At the absolute vanguard of the defensive line, Soren stood tall and unyielding. He had completely abandoned the safety of the rear command post. Instead, personally leading the one hundred frontline elites who had ingested the [Troll Serum], he stood dead center in the path of the charge! These one hundred heavy infantrymen did not carry a single shield.

Staring down the apocalyptic, thundering iron hooves of the Centaurs, they simply bent their knees, rooting their boots firmly into the mud. Both hands reversed their grips on two-and-a-half-meter-long armor-piercing heavy halberds.

"KILL!" An exceptionally ferocious Centaur elite was the first to violently shatter a broken barricade. Riding the apocalyptic inertia of his charge, he brought down a massive, raw-iron heavy saber. Packing enough kinetic force to cleave solid rock, the blade plummeted mercilessly toward the skull of a human elite! In the Centaur's mind, this single, devastating strike was more than enough to effortlessly cleave this pathetic, shield-less human—along with his flimsy layer of tin—cleanly in half. CLANG!

An ear-splitting, thunderous explosion of metal violently impacting metal echoed across the line. A scene that absolutely shattered the Centaur's mind unfolded. That devastating, full-strength cleave slammed squarely into the human soldier's cold, gleaming [Dark Silver Plate Armor]... and left nothing but a microscopic, shallow white scratch! The immense rebounding force actually caused the edge of the Centaur's raw-iron saber to violently curl and chip on the spot!

"Is that all? My turn!" Fueled by the monstrous, unnatural strength of the [Troll Serum], the targeted frontline elite didn't even sway a fraction of an inch under the blow. Beneath his heavy visor, his eyes burned with savage cruelty. His hands blurred, violently thrusting forward and instantly hooking back! SQUELCH! The crescent blade of the two-and-a-half-meter heavy halberd ruthlessly hooked around the Centaur's right front hoof.

Erupting with an absolutely barbaric, monstrous force, the elite soldier violently yanked the halberd backward!

"SKREEE!" The Centaur's right leg was cleanly, brutally severed. Stripped of his balance, the gargantuan beast crashed heavily to the earth. Before he could even thrash in agony, the razor-sharp spear tip of the heavy halberd blurred forward, violently piercing straight through his throat and securely pinning his gargantuan frame to the bloody mud. This terrifyingly efficient, brutal slaughter was playing out across every single inch of the frontline.

The Dark Silver Plate granted the human infantry absolute immunity against conventional slashing attacks. Freed from the cumbersome burden of shields, they were able to channel every microscopic ounce of their monstrous strength directly into their two-handed heavy halberds. They formed an absolute, unyielding wall of iron and blood, flawlessly halting the Centaurs' apocalyptic charge right outside the trenches! Soren's refined steel longsword moved with blinding, lethal agility.

Amidst a dance of cold steel, he rapidly decapitated three Centaur warriors in succession. Even while wading through an apocalyptic frontline drenched in spraying blood and pulverized meat, his mind remained terrifyingly, chillingly calm.

"So this is the supposed apex main force..." Soren laughed coldly in his heart. Even now, with the Greywater Village defensive war having escalated to an absolute, boiling fever pitch... Soren still held a hidden trump card tightly in his hand—one fully capable of utterly altering the trajectory of the entire war!