Chương 323: 323：A Casual Stroll Through the Enemy Camp

The soldiers looked down at their own unblemished bodies, then out at the sprawling carpet of gargantuan alien corpses in the distance. Every last microscopic trace of fear in their hearts completely vanished, instantly replaced by an unprecedented, surging wave of absolute pride! This flawless victory sent the morale of Greywater Village's entire army skyrocketing to an absolute fever pitch.

They finally, truly understood one undeniable truth: as long as they strictly executed the Lord's tactical doctrines, the so-called "Orc Aces" were nothing more than a pack of brainless idiots waiting to die in the mud. This revelation forged an unbreakable, rock-solid psychological foundation for the grueling war of attrition that was yet to come. Meanwhile, two kilometers away in the Centaur army's rear staging ground, the atmosphere was suffocatingly grim.

The howling blizzard swept through the encampment, carrying a thick, unshakable aura of profound desolation and grief.

"Useless trash! Every single one of you is a pathetic, godforsaken failure! A pack of shit-eating cowards!" Centaur Chieftain Heka had spiraled into an absolute, rabid frenzy in front of the main command tent. His gargantuan frame trembled violently with apocalyptic fury. He viciously slammed his spiked flail into the empty ground, kicking up a massive shower of freezing mud, before violently ripping a nearby tribal banner to absolute shreds. Heka's eyes burned a murderous, bloodshot crimson.

Glaring viciously at the blood-drenched Vice-Chieftain, Luke, he roared so ferociously that his spit flew directly into Luke's face:"Those blind, incompetent rats at the Spire of Shadows! The Orc Alliance's intelligence network is staffed by entirely brainless idiots! Just what the hell did they report to Warchief Blackstone?!" Heka's enraged, apocalyptic roars echoed across the entire encampment.

Unable to cope, he forcefully transmuted all his profound terror and humiliating defeat into a rabid condemnation of the Alliance's intelligence failures. How could he not seethe with hatred? Before they marched, the intelligence provided by Bloodfang Fortress had explicitly stated: Greywater Village is nothing more than a dilapidated refugee camp hastily cobbled together by fleeing farmers and a handful of routing soldiers. Their defenses rely entirely on a few rows of wooden barricades and standard hunting bows.

The only formidable threat is their Lord, Soren.

"Their combat strength assessment was absolute bullshit! They told me this was a ragtag militia! But those monsters clad in black metal... our raw-iron heavy arrows couldn't even leave a damn scratch on them!"

"And their ranged firepower evaluation was even more catastrophically wrong! They called those hyper-velocity, repeating weapons capable of pinning a warhorse to the mud 'hunting bows'?! They called those massive machines that pulverized us from hundreds of meters away 'crude defenses'?!" Heka pointed frantically toward the direction of Greywater Village, shrieking in pure fury:"And those defensive trenches!

Who the hell can tell me why those humans are able to instantly hide inside subterranean tunnels, perfectly shielded, while slaughtering our warriors in droves?!" Luke squeezed his eyes shut tightly, numbly allowing Heka's rabid cursing to wash over him. The profound, suffocating grief in his heart had entirely eclipsed his fear of death.

Within his mind, he was executing a chilling, agonizingly clear analysis of their catastrophic peril, desperately attempting to process this horrifying reality:"Heka is right to curse. The catastrophic intelligence failure left us marching completely blind. But far, far worse... the core main force of the Centaur race has already been bled dry in this godforsaken mud." Luke grimly tallied the agonizing blood debt in his heart. The Centaur horde supposedly boasted ten thousand troops.

Yet, over seven thousand of those were elders, children, and women forcefully dragged onto the battlefield! The true, prime-aged elites capable of serving as the core shock-troop vanguard numbered exactly three thousand! And now? Vanguard Centurion Urgar's five hundred elites had been slaughtered to the last man. And the apocalyptic general offensive they had just launched? It had left over a thousand more corpses piled outside the enemy's defensive line. Three thousand of the tribe's absolute core elites...

were now reduced to barely over a thousand terrified, traumatized, and broken survivors! The very first wave of offenses had resulted in an over fifty percent casualty rate among their absolute best. This equated to the total, brutal eradication of the Centaur tribe's core military foundation! This was an absolute, existential crisis of extinction! The freezing gale ravaged the encampment. The surviving Centaur warriors slumped powerlessly in the freezing mud, agonizingly tending to their mangled wounds.

Their morale had plummeted into an absolute, suffocating abyss. Heka's rabid cursing gradually grew hoarse, ultimately devolving into violent, ragged gasps for air. He stared blankly at the rotting mire ahead, entirely incapable of roaring the words "continue the charge" again. The command hierarchy plunged into a dead, suffocating tactical deadlock. Advance?

Those thousand-odd surviving elites had their spirits completely shattered by the repeating crossbows and Dark Silver Plate; they absolutely refused to take another step toward that death line. Use the seven thousand elders and weaklings as fodder? That would merely provide Greywater Village's trebuchets with more corpses to pulverize. Retreat? Warchief Blackstone's cruel, uncompromising military decree still echoed in their ears. The Great Warchief's main army was currently massing in the rear.

If they dared to execute an unauthorized withdrawal without completing their designated strategic objective of bleeding Greywater Village dry, the apocalyptically furious Warchief would instantly order the ruthless, total extermination of the Centaur race! Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Unable to advance, and forbidden to retreat. The once immensely arrogant, continent-roaming Centaur army had been brutally, physically forced into an absolute dead end.

Just at this exact moment, when morale had hit rock bottom...

"ENEMY ATTACK!" A harrowing, terrified shriek violently shattered the prolonged, dead silence of the outer encampment perimeter. Immediately following, an explosive, heavy THUD echoed through the air. A Centaur Centurion responsible for perimeter security—a beast possessing a gargantuan physique—was violently launched backward out of the thick, white fog like a broken ragdoll! His massive frame crashed heavily into the central mud pit of the camp, kicking up an apocalyptic shower of foul-smelling, black muck!

The entire encampment instantly descended into absolute chaos. Panic-stricken Centaur warriors scrambled to grab their bows and sabers, their eyes locked in sheer terror upon the boundary of the dense fog. Who was it?! Had the humans' massive heavy infantry phalanx charged out of their trenches?! Or was it those terrifying Wolf Riders executing a raid?!

However, as the freezing gale violently tore the fog away, the sight that flooded the vision of tens of thousands of Centaurs completely short-circuited their brains. There were only two people. Two humans wearing absolutely zero metallic armor, clad only in thin, coarse martial arts tunics. They strode forward with impossibly calm, measured steps.

Trampling directly over the rotting mud and the mangled limbs of the Centaur perimeter guards, they had forcefully, arrogantly marched straight into the dead center of a staging ground occupied by an army of ten thousand alien elites! Walking on the left was the Monk, Renn. He sported a shaved head. Even in the apocalyptic, sub-zero temperatures, the front of his tunic was completely unbuttoned, boldly exposing his rock-hard, violently bulging, chiseled muscles.

Every single breath he took possessed a bizarre, rhythmic resonance. The thick plumes of white vapor he exhaled did not instantly dissipate in the freezing wind, but lingered, exuding a suffocating, terrifying aura of physical oppression. And walking on the right was the Unarmed Brawler, Duran. Compared to Renn's hulking robustness, Duran's physique appeared much leaner and more agile. He casually hooked his thumbs into his belt.

A cold, utterly indifferent smirk played across his lips as his eyes swept over the surrounding Centaur warriors, completely ignoring the terrifying creaking of thousands of drawn bowstrings aimed directly at him.

"So this is the supposed apex main force? Your situational awareness is absolutely pathetic," Duran mocked, coming to a halt with a cold sneer. These two human warriors stood completely unbothered, absolutely fearless, right in the epicenter of a hostile army of ten thousand. They looked as relaxed as if they were taking a stroll through their own backyard.

"Who the hell are you?! You actually dare to barge into my encampment with just two men?!" Centaur Chieftain Heka violently burst from his command tent. Gripping his spiked flail in both hands, his eyes burned crimson, his aura radiating absolute, rabid mania. Yet, hidden deep within that explosive fury, lurked a profound sliver of dread that he absolutely refused to acknowledge.

After all, anyone capable of silently obliterating his perimeter guards and walking openly right up to his face was undeniably no ordinary foot soldier!

"Relax, you four-legged mutt," Duran said, not even twitching an eyebrow at the sight of the heavy flail capable of pulverizing solid boulders. Moving with deliberate, agonizing slowness, he pulled a wax-sealed parchment scroll from his tunic and casually tossed it. Thwip! The parchment carved a perfectly straight blur through the air, violently smacking Heka right across his scar-riddled face before dropping into the mud.

"Our Lord commanded us to deliver a letter," Renn announced loudly, pressing his palms together in a martial stance.

"The Lord says that before the slaughter begins, the dying prey should at least know exactly why they are being butchered." Hearing this apocalyptic insult, Heka trembled violently with pure rage. He brutally kicked the parchment out of the mud with his hoof, caught it, and viciously ripped open the wax seal. The moment his eyes registered the Centaur script written upon it, the Chieftain's face underwent a catastrophic shift.

A microsecond later, a surge of absolute, uncontainable fury completely eradicated the last shred of his rationality! The handwriting was fiercely powerful, practically cutting through the parchment: [To the ignorant Centaurs:] [The exact moment your filthy hooves stepped into the Misty Swamp, your doom was sealed.] [Do not harbor pathetic delusions of escape. And do not expect that coward, Blackstone, to save you.] [I, Soren, shall entomb your entire ten-thousand-strong army right here in this rotting mire! I will absolutely eradicate the Centaur race from the history of the Continent of Aeresia! Total extermination! Not a single one of you will be left alive!] [Make your peace. Wait for death.] BOOM!

"Extermination?! He actually dares to threaten the total extermination of my race?!" Heka ripped the parchment to absolute shreds, unleashing an apocalyptic, sky-shattering roar. For countless eras, it was an absolute law of nature that Orcs butchered humans. Since when did a mere human Lord of a remote, ramshackle village dare to assume the arrogant, supreme posture of a dominator, and openly declare the absolute genocide of a mighty Orcish race?! This was no longer a simple tactical provocation.

This was taking the ultimate dignity of the entire Centaur race, throwing it into the mud, and ruthlessly, brutally trampling it into nothingness!