Chương 353: 353：The Rescue That Never Came

Pacing slowly around the edge of the strategic sandbox, Grand Duke Valentine spoke, his voice heavy with profound anxiety:"Marr, we know better than anyone that Soren's existence has long since surpassed the realm of a standard border officer."

"His legendary feats of burying that divine envoy and the Governor's nephew, his unprecedented policy of lifetime disability pensions... all of it has violently elevated him into the absolute spiritual leader of humanity's resistance against the Orc legions!"

"In this suffocating, pessimistic Dark Age, he is the singular spiritual pillar holding together the morale of countless bottom-tier soldiers!" The Grand Duke suddenly halted, clenching his fists as his voice rose to a passionate shout.

"If Soren dies in the Misty Swamp, this blazing spark of human defiance he just ignited will be ruthlessly, permanently snuffed out by the Orcs!" Faced with the Grand Duke's visible agitation, General Marr remained terrifyingly calm.

"Precisely because Soren is so vital, Your Grace, we enacted our current strategy. Is that not so?" General Marr reached out, methodically adjusting the marker flags on the sandbox. He let out a long, cynical sigh.

"Thirty-plus human nations, the Church of the Bright Moon, Kings, Aristocrats... in name, we have formed a grand alliance to repel the Orcs. But in reality?"

"Every single faction is coldly watching from the sidelines. The Capital of the Silvermoon Kingdom actively wants Soren dead! The other Duchies are desperately praying the Holy Halycon Empire deploys our main forces into a death match with the Orcs, purely to bleed our national strength dry." Faced with this ugly, suffocating political reality, even a man as immensely powerful as Grand Duke Valentine didn't dare casually order tens of thousands of Imperial main-force troops across the border to save a foreign lord.

The moment those legions got bogged down in that mudhole, the Empire's Northern Defense Line would instantly be left critically hollow.

"Therefore, I did not deploy the army." Grand Duke Valentine took a deep breath, his voice dropping into a low, icy calculation.

"I have already issued a classified directive. I mobilized fifty elite Griffon Knights and had them secretly infiltrate the Misty Swamp."

"Within their packs, they carry incredibly precious assets drawn directly from the Imperial Vault—[Space Teleportation Scrolls]!" The Grand Duke's tone was absolute and decisive. This was his true open conspiracy—a ruthless, calculated move to seize a massive geopolitical advantage for the Empire amidst this high-stakes game of human survival.

In his tactical simulations, there was absolutely no physical way those two thousand ragged, leftover troops in Greywater Village could hold off Warchief Blackstone's thirty-thousand-strong elite core army. The defense line falling and the garrison being slaughtered to the last man was merely a matter of time.

"I am not saving Greywater Village. I am only saving Soren." Grand Duke Valentine spoke with absolute, chilling certainty:"I ordered the fifty Griffon Knights to wait. They will wait until Greywater Village is utterly trampled to dust. They will wait until Soren has exhausted every last option, until his back is against the wall, trapped in an inescapable, bloody encirclement. And at that absolute final second, they will descend from the sky directly before him!"

"They will use spatial magic to forcibly extract Soren! By swooping in during his darkest, most desperate moment, the Holy Halycon Empire will bestow upon him an absolute, life-saving grace! It will completely shatter whatever lingering loyalty he has to the Silvermoon Kingdom and force this once-in-a-generation tactical genius to swear his allegiance directly to me!"

"As long as Soren serves the Holy Halycon Empire, the complete annihilation of a pathetic settlement like Greywater Village means absolutely nothing!" Hearing this ruthless breakdown, General Marr nodded in deep, profound agreement. It was a brilliantly executed, high-risk gambit. Yes, it was ice-cold. Yes, it was bloodthirsty. But for the ultimate hegemony of the Holy Halycon Empire, it was the absolute perfect outcome.

Just as the two men basked in the satisfaction of their impending rescue operation—even beginning to casually debate what Imperial military rank they should officially bestow upon Soren...

"REPORT!" A violently off-pitch, shrieking cry suddenly pierced through the heavy oak doors. BANG! With an earth-shattering crash, the massive double doors of the Supreme Command operations room were violently kicked open. A howling blizzard, carrying the biting, bone-chilling frost of the North, ripped into the grand hall, causing the countless military banners mounted on the walls to snap fiercely in the wind.

An Imperial Magical Communications Officer, the insignia of his rank practically vibrating on his chest, stumbled frantically into the room. He didn't even care that his military cap was skewed sideways. He was sprinting so fast and so wildly that he tripped over his own boots, violently face-planting right onto the priceless velvet carpet.

"Insolent! As an officer of the Empire, how dare you lose your composure like this?!" Grand Duke Valentine's brows knit together in fierce reprimand. However, when the communications officer snapped his head up, the expression on his face was bizarre to the absolute extreme. It wasn't the agonizing despair of hearing a defense line had collapsed. Nor was it the simple, euphoric joy of winning a battle. It was the face of a man whose entire cognitive reality had been violently, fundamentally shattered!

His lips trembled uncontrollably. His knuckles were bone-white as he desperately clutched a sealed parchment scroll bearing the magical imprint of the Misty Swamp frontline.

"Y-Your Grace... General Marr... the frontline... the definitive frontline battle report has arrived..." The officer stuttered, his words fractured and breathless. That single sentence acted like a spell of absolute paralysis. Instantly, the dozen-plus high-ranking Imperial Generals gathered around the massive strategic sandbox stopped dead in their tracks. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. SWISH!

Every single pair of eyes in the grand hall violently locked onto that parchment scroll! Everyone's heart involuntarily seized in their chests. In this absolutely lethal encirclement—a campaign that the absolute highest echelons of human military command deemed to have a zero percent survival rate—how many days did Greywater Village actually manage to last? Did the Griffon Knights successfully extract Soren at the absolute final second?

This singular battle report would directly dictate the geopolitical trajectory of the entire Northern Theater!

"Read it!" Grand Duke Valentine strode aggressively down the steps, his piercing gaze locked onto the officer.

"Did the Greywater Village defense line finally collapse? Was Soren successfully rescued?!" The communications officer swallowed a massive gulp of dry air. With violently trembling hands, he unrolled the heavy parchment. He glanced down at the glowing text. Just reading the words made him feel as if his lungs had stopped working.

Then, expending every single ounce of strength in his body, he used a booming, earth-shattering roar that echoed into every corner of the Supreme Command center to read out a battle record that would violently shake the entire Erythian Continent:"Misty Swamp theater! The Defense of Greywater Village has completely concluded!" Hearing the words 'completely concluded,' Grand Duke Valentine and General Marr briefly exchanged a look, both letting out a quiet, knowing sigh. Just as expected.

Those two-thousand-odd ragged troops were ultimately ground to dust. However, the communication officer's next words violently derailed every single tactical prediction in the room!

"Battle record submitted! Enemy casualties and unit compositions are as follows!" The officer shrieked, his voice cracking with pure adrenaline:"The Greywater Village forces were violently assaulted at their defensive line by a vanguard army of over ten thousand elite Centaurs! After a blood-soaked clash, the Greywater forces did not retreat a single half-step! They completely and utterly shattered the enemy formation!"

"Total annihilation of three thousand Centaur elites on the spot! The remaining six thousand Centaur elders and youths were forced to unconditionally drop their weapons and surrender!" BOOM! The Imperial Generals, who had just been wearing expressions of grim sympathy, felt as though their brains had just been violently struck by a sledgehammer. What?! Crushed ten thousand highly mobile Centaurs?! How is that physically possible?! But the officer didn't stop to let them breathe.

He roared even louder:"Immediately following that! The Greywater Village forces did not passively defend! They initiated a high-mobility night raid!"

"They violently penetrated the mud-logged swamp, aggressively forcing the reinforcing army of ten thousand heavy-axe Minotaurs into a total, apocalyptic rout!"

"And that is not all! During the midnight decapitation strike..." Reading to this point, the communications officer felt his entire scalp go completely numb. Bone-chilling ice shot straight up his spine. His eyes bulged from his skull as he stared at the parchment, screaming the final, horrifyingly absurd sentence directly at the entire hall:"Lord Soren penetrated entirely alone into the absolute core of the enemy camp!

Facing eight overlapping, high-tier magical wards, and the absolute protection of a hundred Black Steel heavy infantry... WITH A SINGLE ARROW, he pierced the heart of the Orc Alliance Supreme Commander, Warchief Blackstone!"

"The enemy supreme commander was killed in action!" When the communication officer screamed the final syllable... The massive Supreme Command operations room plunged into an absolute, suffocating silence. Dead quiet. A silence so profound it was physically terrifying. Even the howling blizzard outside seemed to be entirely muted. The only sound left in the universe was the sharp pop and crackle of the firewood burning in the hearth.

General Marr's jaw hung completely slack, the muscles in his cheeks locked in a state of rigid paralysis. Over a dozen battle-hardened veterans—men who held the supreme rank of Imperial Legion Commanders—were completely stripped of all physical mobility. They were robbed of their very facial expressions, frozen in place in utterly ridiculous, statue-like postures. Only Grand Duke Valentine was the first to violently suck in a sharp breath of freezing air, snapping out of the catatonic shock.

Completely abandoning his flawless aristocratic poise, the Duke lunged forward like a rabid beast. He violently grabbed the communications officer by his collar and ruthlessly snatched the magically sealed parchment right out of his trembling hands! The Grand Duke's eyes widened to the absolute limit. He stared obsessively at the text radiating a scorching, magical heat. Again and again, he aggressively verified the authenticity of the magical fluctuations pulsing from the wax seal.

The exclusive Griffon Mana Imprint of the Imperial Royal Court. It was absolutely, unconditionally real! This battle record completely, violently subverted the absolute common sense of the Supreme Command! No one knew the horrific disparity in military strength better than Grand Duke Valentine. In their tactical simulations, Warchief Blackstone had deployed a staggering thirty thousand frontline ground troops! What kind of apocalyptic nightmare force was that?!

High-mobility Centaur sharpshooters, devastatingly high-damage Minotaur light infantry, impenetrable Pigmen heavy armor! Hell, there was even a full aerial squadron of twelve Wyverns hovering in the sky, ready to unleash devastating alchemical-fire carpet bombing at any second!

Facing a monstrous, overwhelming war machine of that caliber, the Supreme Command's absolute highest expectation for Greywater Village—their wildly optimistic, 'miracle' scenario—was that Soren would sacrifice the lives of his two thousand peasants, suffer a 99% casualty rate, and use the treacherous swamp terrain to stubbornly stall the Orcs for five days! That was it! Just holding out long enough to bleed the Orc logistics dry and force a withdrawal!