Chương 354: 354：Birth of a War God, Broadcasting Victory to the Continent

Grand Duke Valentine had even put himself in Soren's shoes, painfully simulating the battle in his mind. As the Supreme Commander of the Northern Defense for the Holy Halycon Empire, he knew the absolute truth. Even if he mobilized the Empire's top three Heavy Knight Legions, backed by a massive corps of Mages, and initiated a frontal clash against Warchief Blackstone's thirty-thousand-strong army...

Even with a three-to-one numerical advantage, the absolute best outcome he could hope for was tearing a few holes in the Orc lines and forcing a bloody stalemate! It would be an apocalyptic meat grinder that required mountains of human corpses to fill! But now?! What the hell did Soren have? A measly two thousand ragged refugees stuck in a mudhole! Yet he didn't just huddle behind his walls and wait to die!

Not only did he hold his defensive line with ironclad resolve, but he actively transformed a siege into a terrifying counter-offensive that completely broke the Orcs! And with the absolute, suicidal resolve of a man burning his own bridges, he violently carved through a massive enemy formation to execute a flawless, heart-stopping decapitation strike!

"With two thousand ragged conscripts, he annihilated three thousand elite Centaurs, routed a ten-thousand-strong Minotaur infantry legion, executed Chieftain Heka on the front lines, and sniped the Warchief in a night raid..." Grand Duke Valentine's hands began to tremble violently. A massive, turbulent wave of emotion surged in his eyes as he faced a terrifying, yet undeniable truth.

This meant that the actual combat power and tactical mastery of the troops Soren had forged in Greywater Village had already vastly, absurdly surpassed the conventional main-force legions of the entire human faction! After this suffocating, pin-drop silence... BOOM! The Supreme Command operations room violently erupted into an earth-shattering wave of cheers!

"Impossible! This... this is a fucking miracle!" A white-haired veteran general, tears streaming freely down his weathered face, violently slapped himself across the cheek. Confirming he wasn't dreaming, he threw his head back and roared at the ceiling, "A single arrow spanning a death zone to assassinate the supreme commander of a hundred-thousand-strong army! The absolute Bane of the Orcs! Soren is the true God of War for humanity!!" General Marr abruptly snapped out of his catatonic stupor.

Staring at the solitary flag of Greywater Village on the sandbox—a flag they had been absolutely certain would be casually uprooted at any moment—he suddenly burst into exaggerated, hysterical laughter. It was the unrestrained laughter of a man violently shedding a mountain of crushing pressure!

"Hahahaha! Your Grace! Grand Duke!" General Marr laughed so hard he violently slapped his thigh, tears literally welling in his eyes.

"Just a minute ago, we were racking our brains, trying to calculate the absolute perfect microsecond to use those priceless teleportation scrolls to fish him out of a mountain of corpses so he would swear fealty to the Empire..."

"And the result?! Soren didn't wait for us to save him! He went and single-handedly wiped out the supreme command of the Orcs! He just turned around and slapped the absolute hell out of every single one of us!"

"What an earth-shattering, apocalyptic surprise he has gifted to all of humanity!" The Imperial Generals descended into absolute frenzy. They crowded around the sandbox so tightly not a drop of water could slip through, pointing aggressively at the data and engaging in heated, hyped-up debates. Facing an absolute death trap—with Wyverns maintaining total air superiority and thirty thousand elite troops bearing down on him—Soren hadn't just survived.

He had casually executed a flawless counter-kill and a decapitation strike! In this singular moment, the Imperial Generals completely discarded every last ounce of their aristocratic arrogance. That force of ragged refugees in Greywater Village wasn't some pathetic remnant of a shattered army. They were, without a shadow of a doubt, the absolute apex predators, the undisputed kings of the entire human alliance!

"Can you even believe this?" a Heavy Infantry Commander gasped, violently sucking in a breath of cold air.

"In our four-hundred-and-fifty-year blood-soaked history of the Dark Age, this is an absolute, unprecedented miracle!"

"If any other General of the Royal Court dared to submit a battle report claiming two thousand troops crushed thirty thousand and decapitated the supreme commander, I guarantee the Capital's inquisitors would immediately chop his head off for falsifying military merits!"

"But because this happened to Soren—a man who has repeatedly, violently reversed impossible odds—it doesn't breed a single sliver of doubt! It only makes you want to drop to your knees in absolute reverence!" Amidst the roaring, fever-pitch atmosphere, Grand Duke Valentine forcefully suppressed his wildly hammering heart. He reasserted the absolute, imposing aura of an Imperial Overlord. He snatched the battle report, hoisting it high into the air, his piercing gaze sweeping across the room.

In that exact moment, the Grand Duke's peerless political and strategic vision had already recognized the staggering, world-altering influence hidden behind this epoch-defining victory.

"Gentlemen," the Grand Duke's booming voice instantly overpowered the clamor of the hall.

"This impossible, heaven-defying counter-kill is no longer just a victory in a localized campaign!" The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Marr! Immediately activate the Holy Halycon Empire's Royal Magical Communication Array!" Grand Duke Valentine swung his arm in a vicious, cleaving motion, roaring with absolute authority:"Take this battle report! Transmit it, word for absolute word, to the Capital of the Silvermoon Kingdom! Transmit it to the Ironpeak Duchy! Transmit it to every single one of the thirty-plus allied nations across the Erythian Continent!"

"Before the sun rises, I want the news of this apocalyptic victory to violently shake the entire world!"

"I want every single human citizen to know that the 'invincible' Orc legions have been utterly crushed by a hero named Soren! This won't just violently inject adrenaline into our crumbling morale!"

"It will serve as a devastating sledgehammer, ruthlessly shattering the arrogant psyche of the Orc Alliance, and officially declaring the dawn of their apocalyptic end!" As dawn approached, Silvermoon City, the Capital of the Silvermoon Kingdom, remained heavily shrouded in a cold, bleak, and relentless winter rain. Not far from the Royal Palace, the Kingdom's Supreme Command building stood hidden in the gloomy dark.

Unlike the lavish aristocratic estates that echoed with decadent music and debauchery all night long, the atmosphere inside the third-floor operations room was so agonizingly tense it practically suffocated everyone inside. Magical crystal lamps on the walls cast flickering, unstable halos. The mahogany long table was completely buried under various Northern frontier military maps, entirely drained communication crystals, and brass ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts.

Veteran General Rodman stood with his arms crossed before the sandbox, having maintained a rigid, unyielding posture for hours. His pure white hair was meticulously combed, but his deeply sunken eyes and exhausted face silently screamed of the absolute torment this old soldier had endured over the past few days and nights. Surrounding the sandbox were a dozen combat-hardened staff officers and Generals, the stars of their rank gleaming on their shoulders.

The vast majority of them bore brutal scars from vicious border skirmishes with the Orcs. In a Capital completely suffocated by greedy bureaucrats and degenerate nobles, these men were the absolute last pillars of the Silvermoon Kingdom that still retained the blood and iron of true soldiers.

"Four days..." Veteran General Rodman closed his eyes. He gently brushed his fingers over the tiny flag on the sandbox that bore the name [Greywater Village], the thick veins on the back of his hands visibly twitching. In this cramped operations room, every single General held their breath. An agonizing, crushing weight sat heavy on all their chests, torturing them with a profound sense of utter powerlessness. At that exact moment, the heavy doors of the operations room were violently shoved open from the outside.

"Emergency Intelligence!" A communications officer, completely drenched in cold sweat, stumbled wildly into the room. Hoisting a parchment scroll high above his head with both hands, he was trembling so violently his hoarse voice cracked into a shriek:"The Holy Halycon Empire's Royal Magical Array has just broadcast a maximum-clearance, public battle report to over thirty nations across the continent!"

"The Greywater Village campaign... we... we have a result!" SWISH! In a split second, every single staff officer and General in the dead-silent room violently snapped to attention as if struck by lightning. Veteran General Rodman's eyes snapped open. He practically leaped across half the operations room in a single stride, violently snatching the battle report right out of the communications officer's hands.

"Is it the obituary of Greywater Village? That kid Soren... did he finally..." The old General's fingers trembled violently in mid-air. In this agonizing second, this battle-hardened veteran—who had maintained absolute composure when staring down massive enemy armies—didn't even dare to look down and read a single syllable on that parchment. He was absolutely terrified of seeing the gruesome, inevitable conclusion he had desperately prayed against.

However, the exact millisecond his gaze finally touched the massive, bold text at the very top of the battle report, the old General's expression violently twisted. His breathing completely stopped. Time itself seemed to freeze. The rigid tension in the old General's perfectly straight spine violently shattered. The agonizing, suffocating dread that had been tightly compressed in his chest for days finally transformed into a long, heavy exhale, forcefully rushing out of his lungs.

, The muscles in his face visibly twitched, and unshed tears glistened at the corners of his eyes.

"He's not dead... HE IS NOT DEAD!" Veteran General Rodman roared in absolute, euphoric relief. But instantly, that overwhelming joy violently morphed into a blazing, infernal fury. He abruptly spun around, hoisting the battle report high into the air for every man in the room to see, his voice cracking like a whip.

"Now! All of you, read this and see the absolute truth! Open your eyes and look at the grotesque, ugly reality of those despicable, so-called 'noble' overlords sitting in the Royal Palace swirling their wine glasses every damn day!"