Chương 346: 346：Salvation in the Blizzard

Under the reverent gaze of the crowd, at the edge of the horizon, a bizarre formation slowly approached. Leading the vanguard were the eight massive, heavily armored Kodo beasts. With every step these colossal draconic behemoths took, the earth trembled. Trailing behind them was the obscenely luxurious Royal Pavilion that had once belonged to Warchief Blackstone. Now, the banner of Greywater Village flew proudly from its mast, snapping fiercely in the morning wind.

Clad in his [Dark Silver Armor] and bearing the [Windwhisper Bow] pulsing with cyan runes on his back, Soren sat steadily atop the broad spine of the lead Kodo beast. In his hand, he casually carried the massive [Black Executioner's Greatscythe], which radiated a dark, abyssal luster.

"Victory! Ten thousand victories to the Lord!"

"Greywater Village is immortal!" When the three hundred troops of the high-mobility strike force marched through the defensive lines—escorting crates of Mana Crystals, cartloads of Elven Emerald Fruit Wine, and bundles of human gold bars—the cheering reached an absolute crescendo. The Centaur youths who had sworn their allegiance just yesterday walked proudly in the ranks, heads held high and backs straight. They saw that the human soldiers lining the road didn't look at them as prisoners.

Instead, several women from the logistics battalion warmly pressed steaming-hot [Swamp Tubers] into their hands, patting their equine backs in praise. The warmth of being accepted as true brothers-in-arms made these young Centaurs quietly tear up. As they took massive bites of the soft, sweet food, their loyalty to Soren cemented into absolute iron. Soren smiled, nodding to the cheering soldiers and civilians on both sides.

He vaulted smoothly off the Kodo beast, casually tossing the reins to a royal guard who was trembling with excitement.

"Kyle. Fina," Soren called out clearly. The burly Quartermaster Kyle and the elegant Chief Financial Officer Fina Hawthorne immediately stepped forward.

"My Lord!" they saluted in unison.

"Take the Kodo beasts to the pens and tend to them well. Catalog all the loot from the Royal Pavilion. The gold and jewelry go to Fina. As for the Mana Crystals..." Soren paused.

"Dispatch someone to deliver them directly to Scholar Horace and Silver Mage Victor immediately. Tell them funding and materials are now unlimited. I want the reverse-engineering of the [Meteor Swarm] forbidden spell scroll expedited by double!"

"Understood, my Lord!" they chorused perfectly. However, after recording the ledger, Fina Hawthorne didn't immediately step down. Her beautiful brows furrowed slightly. She looked like she wanted to say something but hesitated.

"What's wrong? Is my Chief Financial Officer worried we have too much money to spend?" Soren joked.

"My Lord, no matter how many coins we have, I can turn them into academies and grain for the territory," Fina said with a bitter smile. She flipped open another thick ledger in her hands and sighed.

"What's actually giving Quartermaster Kyle and me a massive headache... is our armory." Kyle scratched his scalp and chimed in.

"It's true, my Lord. You know that Factory Director Luger's geothermal black-steel furnaces have been running non-stop. Every single soldier in the village has already been equipped with insulated [Padded Cotton Armor], and our first and second-line main forces are fully outfitted with [Dark Silver Armor]."

"Coupled with all the gear we've looted from our previous battles... my Lord, our warehouses are literally bursting at the seams." Soren dropped his smile and motioned for the two to follow him to the logistics warehouse. Pushing open the heavy hardwood doors, the metallic smell of iron rust wafted over them. Inside the massive warehouse, rows upon rows of wooden racks were overflowing with supplies. Soren's gaze swept over the items piled up in the corners.

There were well over a thousand sets of standard-issue human military black-iron half-plate armors, alongside thousands of three-meter-long steel pikes. These were the weapons and armor Greywater Village used to rely on, but now they were tossed aside like scrap. Because Soren possessed a massive stockpile of raw black-iron ingots, they hadn't even bothered throwing these old half-plates back into the smelter yet.

"It's not just the gear," Kyle said in sheer frustration, pointing to the other side where burlap sacks were stacked nearly to the ceiling.

"The [Swamp Tubers] you ordered us to plant just had a massive harvest."

"This acid-resistant crop reaches maturity in just sixty days, yielding an absurd five hundred pounds per acre. Factor in the massive stockpiles of dehydrated sorghum and cured magical beast meat we already have..."

"Even if all two thousand nine hundred people in our village ate until their bellies burst every single day, we wouldn't finish this food in three years!"

"Factory Director Luger said he doesn't even have the time to throw these obsolete black-iron armors into the furnace to recast them. He's way too busy smelting silver ore and forging Dark Silver Armor to bother," Fina added. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. As the territory's steward, she felt a physical pain at the thought of such waste, but she honestly couldn't find a single place to put it all.

Soren stood before the mountains of supplies, arms crossed, deep in thought. In other territories, soldiers would violently slaughter each other just to fight over a mouthful of moldy black bread or a set of ratty leather armor. Yet here in Greywater Village, they were agonizing over their grain sprouting from overabundance and their armor taking up too much floor space. Recast them? That's too slow, and a complete waste.

Soren's eyes narrowed thoughtfully as a long-term, grand strategic blueprint rapidly formed in his mind.

"Kyle, go prep thirty [Ironclad Supply Wagons]." Soren turned around, issuing his orders.

"Take these obsolete black-iron armors and pikes. Pick out the ones in good condition. Load them onto the wagons in batches, along with fifty thousand pounds of [Swamp Tubers] and a massive stockpile of medical supplies."

"My Lord, you're going to..." Kyle was slightly confused.

"We are going to share them with our allied forces in the surrounding region," Soren declared decisively.

"Right now, countless human soldiers on the front lines are still wearing thin linen clothes, fighting Orcs to the death in a raging blizzard."

"What we consider space-wasting scrap metal is, to them, divine artifacts that will let them survive a few seconds longer on the battlefield."

"We will divide this aid into two shipments."

"For the first shipment, pack ten supply wagons. Dispatch an elite squad of Wolf Riders immediately and escort them to the northwest highlands of the Withered Bone Forest—directly to the base camp of the Crimson Moon Knights." Meanwhile, a cloud of utter, bleak despair hung heavily over the base camp of the Crimson Moon Knights. Amidst the howling blizzard, two massive, towering toxic camphor trees looked as though they were about to collapse, struggling to guard the camp's sole entrance.

Behind the defensive line, Commander Leona, her crimson hair whipping in the wind and her red eyes narrowed, leaned heavily against her blood-drenched longsword as she personally directed soldiers to carry the wounded off the front lines. They had just repelled a harassment raid by a few hundred Orc remnants. Though they had won, the price they paid was devastating.

"Commander, our medical supplies will only last three more days. Our arrows are completely depleted. Many of our brothers had their pikes snap during the melee—they are literally stabbing Orcs with broken wooden sticks." Vice-Commander Sylvia approached Leona, hoisting a heavy tower shield. Her voice was thick with exhaustion. Leona bit her pale, bloodless lips hard.

The high command in the capital of the Silvermoon Kingdom—that damned Prince Regent and Duke Fernando—had completely severed their logistics and supply lines. That draconian military decree demanding they reclaim the entirety of the Misty Swamp within a single year was nothing but a death warrant, wrapping tighter and tighter like a noose around the neck of the Crimson Moon Knights.

"Hold the line. Tell the brothers that even if they have to bite the Orcs with their bare teeth, we will not let those beasts cross this line," Leona ordered, her voice unyielding. Yet, deep down, she knew the agonizing truth: without supplies, how long could pure willpower possibly last? Just in this moment of utter helplessness...

"Commander! Outside... there's a convoy outside! They're flying the banner of Greywater Village!" A ranger caked in mud and freezing slush staggered frantically into the command post, his voice trembling with sheer excitement. Leona's head snapped up. In absolute disbelief, she charged toward the camp's entrance. Through the raging blizzard, ten massive [Ironclad Supply Wagons], pulled by imposing direwolves, slowly rolled into the camp.

Frost completely covered the spiked armor plating of the wagons, but what was loaded upon them made every single Crimson Moon Knight present tear up. Hundreds of sets of pristine, freshly oiled human standard-issue black-iron armors! Massive crates packed to the brim with battlefield medical supplies! And towering stacks of burlap sacks filled with [Swamp Tubers]! The Greywater Village officer leading the convoy strode up to Leona.

He offered a crisp, deeply respectful military salute, presenting a supply manifest with both hands.

"Commander Leona. This is the aid Lord Soren ordered us to deliver to you." Leona's hands trembled as she took the manifest. When her eyes fell to the bottom of the parchment and she saw that deeply familiar signature—Soren—this fiercely independent, untamed beauty felt a sudden, violent sting in her eyes. Shock, disbelief, and then a profound, overwhelming wave of relief and warmth surged through her, violently striking the deepest chords of her heart.