Chương 105: 105：The Ultimate Bait

Victor extended his hand, but rather than rashly touching the ring itself, he hovered his palm three inches above it. Closing his eyes, he projected his magical perception to read the arcane structure of the mark. A moment later, a fine sheen of cold sweat broke out across Victor's forehead. His eyes snapped open, swimming in absolute shock.

"My Lord, this is a deep-layered brand interwoven with an Orcish blood sacrifice! This absolutely wasn't engraved by some low-level embedded Shaman. This is the masterpiece of a conclave of ancient Orc High Priests!"

"You are well aware that this ring is a ticking time bomb. It could draw down the main forces of Bloodfang Fortress upon us at any given moment!" Soren's eyes remained terrifyingly calm.

"Victor, I am not asking you to erase or destroy the mark. I only have one question for you:""Using your professional expertise as a mage, can you shield this mark? Can you sever its ability to broadcast its magical coordinates to the Orc Alliance's Shamanic Altars?" This was the ultimate test of Victor's value as his Chief Magical Advisor. Victor took a deep, steadying breath.

Over the past few days, in order to establish the [Anti-Shaman Detection Ward], he had pushed his innate talents—[Double Mana] and [Omni-Element Mastery]—to their absolute limits, burying runic keystones around the perimeter of the village day and night. He rapidly calculated the clash between the two power systems in his mind, juxtaposing the intricate arrays of human arcane geometry against the brutal, crude totem blood-sacrifices of the orcs.

"I can!" Victor answered with absolute certainty, the inherent pride of an elite human mage flaring to life.

"When it comes to high-level, complex arcane shielding, those green-skinned savages who drink beast blood and eat raw human flesh are centuries behind human scholars."

"My original anti-detection ward is already forming its framework. I just need to add thirty-two Concealment Crystals to forcefully invert the localized magical magnetic field."

"Once the array is complete, even if Warchief Blackstone's own Chief High Priest personally came looking with a magical compass, this ring would vanish from their perception like a drop of water merging into the ocean. Completely erased!" Soren nodded, deeply satisfied. His primary goal of neutralizing the immediate threat had been achieved. However, Soren's hand did not leave the lead box.

"Second demand."

"Victor, try to crack its seal."

"For those orcish rabid dogs to cross the swamp and bite down on this without letting go, this spatial ring absolutely contains more than just a few thousand gold coins. There must be something inside capable of shifting the entire tide of the war in the Misty Swamp." Victor stared blankly at the purple crystal, cold sweat now cascading down his back.

"My Lord..."

"I can attempt to dissect the outer layers of the seal."

"But as for forcefully cracking open the deepest spatial vault? I don't have a shred of confidence. It would be the equivalent of disarming an unstable, forbidden spell crammed in there by a Grand Magus."

"If even a single sequence of the unlocking incantation is wrong, the moment it's forcefully opened..."

"The internal space of this ring will instantly collapse and detonate!"

"The compressed spatial turbulence wouldn't just shred every item inside into atomic dust; the explosive backlash of that released energy would..." Victor didn't dare finish the sentence, but his meaning was crystal clear. If it blew, this entire command post—and likely half of Greywater Village along with it—would be utterly erased by a chaotic arcane storm. A heavy silence descended over the room. Clack. Soren made a single, decisive motion. He snapped the heavy lead lid shut.

There wasn't a single trace of greed or hesitation on Soren's face.

"If opening it means mutual destruction, then there is no need to force it."

"Seal it up. We proceed with the original plan: interference and shielding only." So what if he couldn't use the strategic resources locked inside? It didn't matter in the slightest. A spatial ring that the orcs were so fanatically obsessed with... was in itself the ultimate bait! All he had to do was choose a blind, inescapable death-zone of his own making, and order Victor to temporarily drop the shield.

The moment that faint signal pulsed out, the Blackstone Warband would frenzy like piranhas smelling fresh blood. They would charge headlong right into his meticulously prepared kill-box! Whether or not this ring was a treasure trove was completely irrelevant now. Because from this day forward, this ring was the ultimate hunting tool for slaughtering green-skins in the Misty Swamp. Meanwhile. The Holy Halycon Empire, Royal Griffon Knights Border Encampment.

In this miserable stretch of mud bordering the Misty Swamp, only the encampment of the Holy Empire possessed the sheer, overbearing wealth to ignore the environment. Rows of massive military tents, stitched together from tanned white bear pelts, dominated the landscape. High above in the rain-slicked sky, over a dozen Royal Griffons—massive beasts exceeding thirty feet in length—circled the perimeter. Their brass-like wings sliced through the rain, emitting piercing shrieks that tore through the clouds.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. At the very center of the camp sat the Commander's Grand Tent. Inside, the floor was lined with plush red velvet carpets, and the braziers burned incredibly rare, smokeless spice-wood just for warmth. Alaric, the Commander of the Royal Griffon Knights, sat lounging in a plush leather sofa, casually draped in a silk robe.

As the legitimate son of an Imperial Duke of the Holy Halycon Empire, an inherent, suffocating arrogance radiated from his very bones. The national power of the Holy Empire was immense enough to press the Silvermoon Kingdom into the dirt. In terms of pure status, Alaric, a Duke's heir, commanded more weight and respect than most of the marginalized princes of the Silvermoon Kingdom itself. Yet at this moment, a dark, murderous storm clouded the haughty Commander's brow.

Not long ago, a massive shipment of contraband—hundreds of crates of military-grade longbows and armor-piercing heavy arrows he was secretly smuggling—had vanished without a trace overnight. Even the band of Orcish outlaws at Bone Ridge, who had originally hijacked his caravan, had been utterly wiped from the face of the earth. This kind of phantom humiliation—having his prized operation dismantled by an unknown ghost—was like a fishbone lodged deep in his throat.

He couldn't spit it out, and he couldn't swallow it. Swish! The ornate flap of the tent was violently thrown open. Royal Archmage Valeriu hurriedly stepped over the threshold. Normally a man who obsessed over his aristocratic bearing, the Tier-5 High Mage didn't even bother casting a water-repelling spell to dry his soaked robes.

"My Lord! We found them!"

"The bloodbath at Bone Ridge, that phantom unit—their identity has been completely verified!" Alaric's icy blue eyes locked onto the mage.

"Speak." Valeriu swallowed hard.

"It is a unit that broke away from Leona's main camp, operating as an isolated guerrilla force deep within the swamp."

"They are the 1st Vanguard Battalion of the Silvermoon Kingdom's Crimson Moon Knights!"

"And their commanding officer... is named Soren!" Soren! The moment that name left Valeriu's lips, a violent tremor rippled through Alaric's eyes.

"It's actually him?" For a man who prided himself on absolute composure, a look of profound, inconceivable shock broke across the Imperial Commander's face.

"Valeriu, are you absolutely certain there are no flaws in this intelligence?" Valeriu nodded emphatically.

"It is the absolute truth, My Lord! Our scouts paid a fortune to pry this information from the mouths of several orcish informants. It cannot be wrong!" Alaric slowly leaned back into his leather sofa. It made sense. It all perfectly, terrifyingly clicked into place. Prior to this, several absurd battle reports had crossed Alaric's desk. At the time, he had dismissed them, assuming this 'Soren' had simply gotten incredibly lucky. But looking at them now... the context was entirely different.

The Battle of Sunken Bone Shallows. This man named Soren had somehow led a mere infantry formation to butcher a Son of Titan protected by an innate rock-shield! Broken Bone Pass. A night raid resulting in the frontal annihilation of five hundred Blackiron Orcs, carving a path of blood straight through their lines. And the third report was the most ludicrous of all. This unit had plunged directly into the heavily fortified Blood Arena, forcefully breaching it and rescuing a massive horde of prisoners of war.

Alaric had originally assumed this had to be a hidden, elite Royal Army of over a thousand men, commanded by some grizzled, white-haired veteran general to pull off such miracles. But then, Valeriu's trembling voice echoed through the tent once more:"Lord Commander... the most terrifying part isn't even his combat record."

"Our intelligence shows that over two months ago, when Leona first dispatched this battalion... Soren had exactly twenty-five green recruits under his command."

"Yet in this man-eating Misty Swamp, not only did he survive, but in just a few dozen days, he snowballed that handful of men into a massive, heavily armed force!" He started with twenty-five men? Alaric felt his scalp go completely numb, a chill exploding down his spine. To start with nothing. No secure rear guard. No supply lines. To plunge into a death zone filled with toxic miasma, acidic mud, and hyper-lethal orcish warbands, and actually build an army?

As a man who had commanded thousands of elite Imperial Griffon Knights his entire life, Alaric understood the logistical nightmare of war better than anyone. To maintain weapons, food, and morale in such a godforsaken hellscape from absolute scratch... That wasn't just difficult. In Alaric's eyes, it was a literal, terrifying impossibility!