Chương 63: 63：Mankind Does Not Play the Dog

Right at that moment. [Ding!] [Talent Detection triggered!] [Direction: Southwest. Straight-line distance: 3. 2 kilometers.] [Identity Classification: Commander-type Talent] Soren, standing before the push-open window of his treehouse, felt his pupils contract the instant he heard the prompt.

"Southwest... three kilometers..." He was determined to secure this newly appeared high-tier talent. Soren abruptly turned and shoved the wooden door open. Outside stood Renn. The monk, fresh from the bloody battles of the Colosseum and immediately promoted to Soren's personal guard, stood bare-chested, revealing a torso crisscrossed with over a hundred terrifying scars. With his arms crossed and eyes shut, he stood perfectly still on a tree branch—his unique method of cultivation.

"Renn, with me." Renn didn't ask a single question.

"As you command, My Lord." Fifteen minutes later. Before the barricades on the outskirts of Greywater Village, sixty-four fully armed, frontline elite infantrymen had already assembled.

"Target: Southwest. Three-kilometer forced march! Ein, you're on the rearguard. Gary, take the vanguard and scout ahead; clear out all blind spots!"

"Move out!" At Soren's cold command, sixty-four pairs of combat boots marched into the marshlands in perfect unison.... Only five hundred meters remained to the target destination. The main force halted before a swampy backwater choked with poisonous vines. In the foul-smelling sludge ahead, an ordinary-looking pile of dead leaves suddenly twitched. Immediately after, Scout Captain Gary, caked from head to toe in muck, peeled himself from the earth like a phantom and dropped to one knee before Soren.

Gary's expression was grim, and unconcealed killing intent seeped through his gritted teeth.

"My Lord, I've got a clear read. Three hundred meters ahead, there's a group of about thirty men. Judging by the style of their battered armor and the bone armbands they wear..." Gary spat viciously into the mud.

"... they're that human slave army. The ones playing lapdogs for the orcs!" At the mention of the "human slave army," the breathing of the surrounding elite soldiers noticeably grew heavy. On this frontier battlefield, the most despised enemies weren't the naturally brutal orcs. It was these treacherous bootlickers—those who betrayed their own kind for survival and profit, acting as slave drivers for the orc overlords and hunting down prisoners of war in exchange for bounties!

"Over thirty of them, sneaking around our perimeter. They're definitely a scout unit sent by the orcs to sniff out the exact location of Greywater Village!" Gary abruptly drew the dagger from his waist, a feral glint in his eyes.

"My Lord, give the order! Just give the nod, and I'll take two brothers to flank them and slit their sentries' throats. The infantry can encircle the rest. We won't even need a quarter of an hour to chop these dogs into mincemeat!" Renn clenched his fists as well, his knuckles cracking loudly. With just a single hand signal from Soren, he would be the first to charge in and shatter their ranks. Yet, amidst the collective fury of his men, Soren remained entirely calm.

Why would a high-tier talent identified by the System be mixed in with a slave army that had submitted to the orcs? The System was never wrong. There had to be an underlying reason, a hidden truth behind this seemingly illogical situation. Simply charging in and slaughtering them would be easy. But if, during the chaotic clash of cold steel, the very high-tier talent he was determined to recruit ended up getting accidentally skewered—that would be an absolute disaster.

"Everyone, hold your positions." The agitated elite formation fell instantly silent. Soren lowered his stance and issued his commands in a frosty tone.

"Use the swamp's terrain. Sink into ambush positions right where you are. Smear mud over your spear tips to dull the reflection."

"If anyone makes a sound without my order, they will face military law."

"We watch and wait. Let them come to us." Military orders were absolute. The sixty-four ironclad soldiers instantly dropped into a half-crouch. Utilizing the waist-high toxic ferns and muddy puddles, they vanished from sight in the blink of an eye. All that remained were pairs of eyes locked onto the dense fog ahead. Faint footsteps echoed through the mist. Squish. Squelch. Soren crouched behind a shrub, his eyes narrowing slightly. [Eagle Eye Perception], activate.

The blurry silhouettes in the distance were forcefully magnified, pulled right before his eyes until every minute detail became crystal clear. They were indeed a group of men wearing the uniforms of the slave army. However, the lower hems of their armor were soaked through with muck. They staggered as they walked. Though their weapons were half-drawn, their grips and stances were entirely defensive, constantly guarding their rear and flanks.

Some of the soldiers were even supporting one another, taking three heaving breaths for every step they took. Their eyes held none of the cunning or ferocity of a scouting party gathering intel; there was only bottomless exhaustion, paranoia, and sheer terror. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. These weren't stealthy scouts on a reconnaissance mission. They were, quite frankly, a pack of stray dogs fleeing for their lives!

Soren turned his head and shot a glance at Gary, who was lying prone beside him. As a seasoned scout, Gary had calmed down and clearly noticed that something was off. He frowned and flashed a series of tactical hand signals: [Armor severely damaged] -> [No offensive formation] -> [Stamina nearing absolute exhaustion]. Gary's implication was clear: This group didn't look like they were targeting Greywater Village. Soren pressed his palm down slightly in agreement.

It was then that Soren's gaze pierced through the crowd and locked onto the tall, burly man leading the way at the very front. The man had a thick, bushy beard. Though his face was heavily weathered by the elements, underneath his tattered leather armor, his muscles were knotted and dense like solid rock. Within Soren's field of vision, a prompt appeared: [Name]: Buck [Talents]: - [Advanced Cavalry Commander]: Proficient in heavy cavalry charges and light cavalry guerrilla tactics.

- [Beast Affinity]: Possesses a natural ability to pacify and tame ferocious beasts. The betrayal rate of mounts is exceptionally low. Soren's heart skipped a beat as a surge of sheer ecstasy washed over him. What was one of Greywater Village's greatest weaknesses? Mobility! No matter how elite his infantry was, two legs could never outrun the four legs of the orcs' beasts. He had recently captured nearly a hundred giant direwolves.

During the day, they were used as draft animals to plow the fields, and at night, the reserve soldiers used them to practice cavalry drills in the mud. While they possessed a certain degree of combat effectiveness, they couldn't hold a candle to regular cavalry. After all, they were ultimately just a bunch of dirt-farming peasants, and Soren simply didn't have the time to train them personally. He had left it all under Kyle's management. Buck's appearance was virtually tailor-made for Greywater Village!

With [Beast Affinity] to fully subjugate the direwolves, combined with the training methods of an [Advanced Cavalry Commander]... as long as Soren could recruit this man and give him half a month, his wolf cavalry would be battle-ready. A force of wolf riders that could strike and fade like the wind itself! He had to recruit this man!... The thick fog condensed into water droplets on Buck's face. He trudged forward, testing the ground with every uneven step.

His thighs sank into the knee-deep, black muck; pulling his legs free drained his stamina with every stride.

"Captain, Old Took can't hold on any longer..." a suppressed, raspy voice called out from behind. Buck whipped his head around. He watched as an aging veteran in the ranks lolled his head to the side and collapsed stiffly into the acidic sludge. Two pairs of arms immediately shot out from beside him, desperately hauling the old soldier up by his collar to keep him from sinking under. Buck waded back through the line.

He rubbed the grime off his large hands, cupped some relatively cleaner water from a nearby puddle, and splashed it onto the old soldier's face. The old veteran coughed violently as he regained consciousness. Upon recognizing Buck, an ashen, lifeless despair clouded his eyes.

"Captain... just leave me here. With us wearing the uniforms of the slave army... even if we make it out of this swamp, the Silvermoon Kingdom's border guards will just shoot us down as traitors..."

"Bullshit!" Buck roared, his eyes bloodshot.

"I don't leave any brother behind! I led you boys off that defensive line, and I swear I'm going to lead you out of this damned swamp today!" Buck straightened his back, his gaze sweeping over the thirty-odd brothers who had bled and fought by his side. His chest burned with a suffocating mix of rage and grievance. Just five days ago, they had been the pride of the Silvermoon Kingdom's border defense—a fully sanctioned, regular cavalry battalion.

Buck himself had been their Cavalry Captain, a man deeply respected and loved by his troops. But then, disaster struck. The aristocratic general who held true authority over their sector of the defensive line, Viscount Blake, had orchestrated their downfall. To monopolize the border trade and climb the ladder of political power, Blake hadn't just framed loyal officers—he had secretly defected to the Orc Alliance! Viscount Blake's greedy, venomous face flashed in Buck's mind.

That damned traitor had actually ordered their entire battalion to strip off their Kingdom-issued armor and don the shameful, bone-patterned insignia of the orc slave army. Blake had sugarcoated it as a "deep-cover infiltration mission," but in reality, he was offering them up as a blood sacrifice—a tribute to the orcs to serve as guards for their vile Colosseum! But Buck was a man with a spine forged of iron.

He was more than willing to die in battle for his Kingdom, but he absolutely refused to bow his head to those green-skinned beasts!

"Mankind does not play the dog for orcs!" Late at night, during the changing of the guard, Buck and the thirty-odd brothers who swore to stand by him had drawn their blades. They cleaved the orc overseer in two, outright rebelled against the encampment, and plunged headlong into this mist-shrouded swamp—a dead zone where no one ever dared to tread.