Chương 98: 98：Severed Head Valley

"All troops, hear my command!" The scar-faced Commander violently kicked over a clay pot of boiling water and drew his heavy battleaxe.

"Cancel the rest! There will be no cliff-scaling today! Those cowardly turtles have tossed the divine artifact right onto the roadside for us!"

"Ditch the heavy defensive shields! Shift into a full offensive formation, maximum speed!"

"March on the valley ahead where the magic is fluctuating! Double-time! We are taking back our treasure!" Boom! Boom! Boom! Discarding their cumbersome tower shields, the forty-odd surviving Blacksteel elites—alongside the Great Shaman's raised bone palanquin—erupted through the muddy rain with the ferocity of starving wolves leaping at their prey. They were ready to plunge straight into the valley and reclaim their prize. Whoever laid eyes on the spatial ring first would be hailed as a hero!

This stretch of mud, perpetually shrouded in dense fog, was known as Severed Head Valley. It looked like an ugly scar cleaved into the flank of Lone Cliff by nature's own axe. True to its name, the entrances at the northern and southern ends were so narrow that only two men could walk abreast. But the middle suddenly dipped and widened, forming a pale, rocky basin utterly devoid of cover.

What made it truly lethal, however, was that one side of this clearing hugged a sheer, bottomless precipice, while the other side was a towering, steep slope overgrown with acid-resistant shrubs. It was a flawless, inescapable pocket trap. The Blacksteel Orc Commander led his remaining forty-plus elites, along with the bone palanquin pulled by the twin-headed wargs, frantically squeezing through the narrow bottleneck.

"It's right ahead! Dead center in the clearing!" The Commander wiped muddy water from his face, his single eye erupting with greedy fanaticism. In a puddle upon the open, rocky beach, the spatial storage ring, inlaid with a dark purple crystal, lay quietly inside a half-open lead box. It radiated a faint yet distinct magical glow.

"Those idiotic subterranean rats actually dumped the divine artifact here to save their own skins!" The Commander licked his cracked lips. In his desperate bid for speed and glory, he had already ordered all his Blacksteel elites to shed their heavy defensive shields. Now, this heavy infantry unit—hailed as the absolute trump card of the Blackstone Warband—was like a bale of turtles stripped of their shells, completely exposed and defenseless at the bottom of the open valley.

"Tighten formation! Go fetch the divine artifact for His Grace, the Great Shaman!" As the Commander roared, several of the fastest orc elites sprinted toward the puddle, their fang-filled maws split into wide, exhilarated grins. However... Behind the thick shrubs on the steep slope, a full sixty meters above the valley floor, a pair of profound eyes stared down at the unfolding scene. Soren crouched in the damp soil, his heavy black iron armor draped in a grey camouflage net made of woven grass.

Beside him, the burly hobgoblin Luger pressed his massive frame tightly against the back of a boulder. In the two-hundred-meter-long trench running along the ridge line behind them, over a hundred goblin technicians and guards had already stockpiled tons of rolling logs and boulders. Every poisoned crossbow was loaded, the strings drawn to their absolute limits, emitting a taut, agonizing creak.

"Lord Soren..." Luger whispered, his eyes locked onto the orc host below.

"They're all in." Soren spat out a single word:"Kill." Luger violently hoisted himself half-up, raised a hand-axe as a signal, and swung it down with hysterical fury:"Crush these green-skinned bastards!" BOOM! In an instant, the dead silence of Severed Head Valley boiled over. The goblins ambushing from the high slope let out ear-piercing shrieks.

They frantically slashed the ropes holding back the boulders and used levers to pry loose colossal logs and granite rocks so massive it would take several men to encircle them. At once, a dense, torrential rain of rocks, discarded wagon axles, and even iron slag plummeted from the sixty-meter heights, violently cascading toward the valley floor! Accompanying the avalanche of stone were over a hundred goblin crossbow bolts, each slathered in a lethal, flesh-rotting venom.

These bolts wove together in mid-air, forming a gigantic net of inescapable death! The first to bear the brunt of the assault were the very orc elites who had nearly reached the ring.

"Enemy attack!" The violent tearing of the wind above them instantly froze the ecstasy on the orcs' faces. They instinctively looked up, only to be met with a sky blotted out by descending despair. Stripped of their heavy tower shields, the massive boulders smashed into the orc ranks without a shred of resistance. CRASH! CRACK! One orc elite barely managed to raise his battleaxe in defense before a hundred-pound millstone dropped from the heavens, driving him, his axe, and his head straight into his own ribcage!

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Under the horrifying impact, the Blacksteel shoulder guards warped and buckled. Blood jetted from the seams of the armor like a popped water balloon.

"Form a circle! Find cover!" The scar-faced Commander's eyes practically tore open in rage. Swinging his heavy axe like a madman, he dashed left and right through the chaos, desperately trying to stabilize the battle lines. But the price for discarding their shields was agonizingly steep. The poisoned bolts rained down from all directions. While they couldn't pierce the thick front plating of the Blacksteel armor, there were simply too many.

Inevitably, several found their marks, viciously biting into the backs of the orcs' necks, the vulnerable joints behind their knees, and even slipping right through the eye slits of their helmets! The venom was instant and lethal. Four or five robust Blacksteel Orcs who had suffered nothing more than a scratch instantly began frothing at the mouth. Their massive frames convulsed and collapsed limply into the muddy water, only to be pulverized into meat paste by the subsequent falling boulders.

"Hold the line! Fall back to the exit! Retreat! Get out of this damned gorge!" The Orc Commander quickly realized this was a premeditated ambush. After paying the bloody toll of over a dozen dead brothers, he finally managed to organize the brutal Blacksteel infantry, attempting to forcefully cut a path back the way they came.

"Trying to leave? You think it's that easy?" A cold smirk curled onto Soren's lips. Just as the vanguard of the orcs was about to charge the narrow choke point leading out of the valley...

"Cut off their escape!" the goblin technicians on both sides of the cliff roared, violently swinging their hammers down. RUMBLE! The colossal nets of rocks, suspended in advance on the cliffs above both ends of the valley, had their ropes severed. Tons of massive boulders and debris avalanched down like a landslide. In mere breaths, both the front and rear exits of Severed Head Valley were completely sealed, transformed into two insurmountable walls of rubble! No path forward. No path back.

Amidst this chaotic slaughterhouse, an exceptionally jarring pulse of magical energy suddenly erupted from the valley floor. The high-tier, elderly Orc Shaman—shielded by the bodies of four fiercely loyal Blacksteel guards—had awkwardly tumbled behind a protruding boulder at the base of the gorge. Having evaded the sky full of falling rocks, the Great Shaman's face was coated in blood, his war-painted features contorted to the extreme.

"Despicable rats! Face the wrath of the Earth Spirits!" The old Shaman violently drove his wraith-skull staff into the ground. A shrill, raspy incantation exploded from his lips. The surrounding muddy water began to violently boil, and a spiraling vortex of orange-red fire rapidly converged in the air above him. The intense heat was enough to visibly warp the air!

Once this Tier-3 Area of Effect spell took form and bombarded the high slope's shrubs, the defenseless goblins hiding there would suffer catastrophic casualties. The ambush would disintegrate in an instant! [Eagle Eye Perception!] Up on the high slope, a ripple abruptly expanded deep within the eyes of Soren, who had been observing the battlefield. Suddenly, even the trajectory of the falling raindrops became crystal clear.

Soren's gaze instantly pierced through the sixty-meter distance, locking onto the exposed sliver of the old Shaman's neck and jaw beneath the giant boulder.

"A spellcaster without absolute protection is nothing but a walking target on the battlefield." To display his goodwill during negotiations earlier, Soren hadn't brought his Windwhisper Bow. Without missing a beat, he snatched a crudely made wooden crossbow from the hands of a dumbstruck goblin guard standing beside him. Stepping into the crossbow's stirrup, he relied solely on the monstrous strength granted by his faint trace of Titan's Blood.

Without using a winch or any drawing aid, he gripped the rawhide bowstring with his bare hands and forcefully cranked it back to a full draw! Bolt loaded. Weapon leveled. Without a shred of hesitation or pause, the crossbow remained as steady as a mountain in Soren's grip. Wind direction. Raindrop resistance. The angle of gravitational drop. Every variable merged into a precise ballistic equation within his mind! Thwip! A sharp, ear-piercing hiss of tearing silk rang out.

Down behind the boulder's cover, the very last syllable of the old Shaman's lengthy incantation was just about to roll off his tongue. SQUELCH! A short crossbow bolt, coated in dark green venom, traced an impossible diagonal arc. It threaded the needle with terrifying precision, sliding right through the narrow gap between two axe-wielding orc guards. Without deviating an inch, it slammed violently into the cartilage just below the Great Shaman's Adam's apple, burying itself all the way to the fletching!

The arrowhead exploded out the back of his neck in a burst of crimson spray, punching completely through!