Chương 119: 119：Godlike Strategic Foresight

Borderlands of the Holy Halycon Empire. The Valentine Family Supreme Command Center. Alaric had just finished recounting the jaw-dropping miracles Soren had forged in Greywater Village. The high-ranking generals were still reeling, immersed in profound shock, when... Deep within the grand hall, the supreme communication array suddenly erupted with a violent hum. Forged from a single, massive slab of Deep-Sea Silver and Voidstone, this array usually sat as lifeless as a tombstone.

Only absolute, top-tier, existential military intelligence could bypass standard magical channels and forcefully activate it. VZZZT! VZZZT! Inside the array's central groove, the liquid mercury—usually as placid as a mirror—began to frantically boil. Blue-purple arcs of raw magic whipped around the edges like unhinged lightning serpents, casting chaotic, flickering shadows across the entire command center. Grand Duke Valentine strode forward, his heavy boots echoing on the stone floor.

The liquid mercury rippled violently before the image finally stabilized. It revealed a fat, pallid face completely drenched in cold sweat, wearing the manic expression of a man who had just narrowly escaped the Reaper's scythe. He was panting hysterically. The background was a dim, cramped underground bunker, and the terrifying, muffled thuds of massive impacts could be heard echoing from the ceiling above.

"Lord Grand Duke! I've finally connected to you!" It was Thomas, the Administrator of Lone Cliff.

"Speak," the Grand Duke commanded, his voice cold.

"It's the Bloodaxes! The twin blood-red battleaxe banner of the Orc Alliance!" Thomas's voice trembled with unconcealed terror.

"A full five hundred fully armed Blackiron heavy infantry! They bypassed our frontline defenses like literal ghosts! Just now, not even fifteen minutes ago, they launched a full-scale assault on Lone Cliff!" BOOM! That piece of intelligence dropped like a physical bomb. A bone-deep chill instantly shot down the spines of the dozen high-ranking generals in the command center. They fell completely, terrifyingly silent. A muscle violently twitched on Grand Duke Valentine's granite-carved face.

This was a man whose expression wouldn't change even if a mountain collapsed in front of him. Yet right now, his breathing turned dangerously heavy, and his hands balled into bone-crushing fists at his sides. Only a supreme strategist like him truly understood what [Lone Cliff] meant.

In the deepest heart of the Misty Swamp—a hellscape ruled by hyper-toxic vines, acidic mud, and Twin-Headed Crocs where no merchant dared tread—building and maintaining Lone Cliff had practically bled the Empire's logistical resources dry. To drive this single, vital nail so dangerously close to the Orcish heartland, the human coalition had burned an astronomical amount of wealth. Lone Cliff wasn't just hoarding mountains of wheat and cured meat stockpiled for the grand counter-offensive.

It was the sole storage facility for high-tier alchemical herbs utterly unique to the swamp. Those herbs were the absolute lifeblood holding the frontline Mage Battalions and the triage camps together! And now, five hundred elite Orc shock troops had smashed into it.

"Where is the Minister of Intelligence?! GET THE HELL OUT HERE!" The Grand Duke violently spun around. His furious roar echoed with such physical force that the crystal chandeliers overhead clashed and violently shook. In the corner of the command center, a Count dressed in luxurious silk robes felt his knees instantly give out. He crashed heavily to the stone floor, his silken undershirt instantly drenched in cold sweat.

"Useless trash! A pack of bloated leeches doing nothing but burning Imperial military funds!" The Grand Duke crossed the room in three massive strides and planted a brutal kick square into the Count's chest, sending him sprawling across the floor.

"Three hundred thousand gold coins a year in funding!"

"You swore to me that your scout network could track every single fly on the edge of the Misty Swamp!" Veins throbbed violently on the Grand Duke's forehead. He pointed a lethal finger at the Minister's face:"So you tell me! Five hundred elite Orcs! Monsters over two meters tall, wearing hundreds of pounds of Blackiron heavy armor, whose very footsteps cause the earth to tremor!

How in the seven hells did they march right up to the gates of Lone Cliff, and your pathetic, laughable intelligence network didn't let out a single damn squeak?!"

"Did they sprout wings and fly over?! Or did they all magically turn into invisible ghosts?!" This wasn't just a simple breach of defense. In terms of military logic, this was a catastrophic, historic humiliation. A human defensive line, saturated with elite scouts and magical detection wards, had just been completely bypassed by a horde of brutish, muscle-brained Orcs executing a deep-strike stealth march spanning hundreds of miles!

If word of this reached the Imperial Capital, the Valentine Family's centuries of military prestige would be reduced to ash! In his mind's eye, the Grand Duke was already picturing the apocalyptic aftermath: Lone Cliff reduced to a sea of fire, civilians who couldn't flee being torn apart and eaten raw, and mountains of priceless grain being looted to feed the enemy.

"L-Lord Grand Duke! Draw your sword! Mobilize any legion, we must force-march to save them immediately..." the Intelligence Minister sobbed hysterically on the floor.

"Save them?! By the time our heavy infantry wades through that mud, there won't be a single intact brick left in Lone Cliff!" Just as the Grand Duke let out a furious, bitter laugh and reached for his sword—fully intending to execute his own Spymaster right then and there to vent his rage—a hesitant voice echoed from the mercury array. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. It was Thomas. He sounded somewhat awkward, yet overwhelmingly relieved.

"Lord Grand Duke, please, quell your wrath. Please, listen."

"Actually... actually, the situation isn't nearly as bad as you think." The Grand Duke's hand froze on his sword hilt. He violently snapped his head toward the array.

"The enemy has already kicked down the doors, and you're telling me it isn't bad?!" On the other side of the screen, Thomas wiped the sweat from his face and hurriedly reported, "No, no! You don't understand!"

"The Bloodaxe Battalion came in like a tidal wave, yes. But right now? They are throwing their axes at completely empty houses!"

"Just moments ago, they swarmed our residential and storage zones."

"But long before they arrived, every single civilian, every guard, every freshly tied bundle of autumn wheat, thousands of liters of clean water, and every last leaf of alchemical herbs in the cellars... all of it was entirely evacuated into the subterranean safehouses and the secure high-ground!"

"The alarm was pulled far, far in advance. Frankly, aside from smashing a few hundred empty wooden beds and some broken carts, those five hundred Orcish bastards haven't gained a single copper coin of value."

"Lone Cliff's actual material losses are practically zero." Dead silence. Inside the Valentine Command Center, it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Several veteran generals who had just been lamenting the catastrophic loss now stood frozen, their jaws practically hitting the floor. The apocalyptic fury on the Grand Duke's face instantly solidified, rapidly morphing into profound, unadulterated shock.

"How is that possible?" The Grand Duke violently leaned into the array, not even caring that the scorching mercury vapors were blistering his cheeks.

"Who warned you to evacuate in advance?!" Hearing this, a look of profound, deeply ingrained reverence washed over Thomas's fat face. He instinctively lowered his voice, speaking as if invoking the name of a terrifying deity.

"An hour before the apocalypse arrived, a single messenger riding a massive Swamp Warg charged right up to our outer barricades."

"He flew the banner of the Crimson Moon Knights' 1st Vanguard Battalion. He was a subordinate of Captain Soren!"

"Lord Soren dispatched him to deliver a direct verbal command." Thomas clutched his still-pounding chest, exhaling a trembling breath of pure relief.

"At first, I didn't dare believe it. It sounded like an absurd farce. How could a frontline Imperial outpost miss what a single swamp Captain saw? But... Lord Soren's warning was too severe. The authority in his words was suffocating."

"To protect my own life, I treated it as the absolute truth and immediately pulled the evacuation alarm."

"Looking back now... if it hadn't been for Lord Soren's god-like foresight, Lone Cliff would already be a literal hell on earth!" A deathly, suffocating silence returned to the hall. In that instant, a literal earthquake ripped through the Grand Duke's worldview. All his previous fury, his crushing anxiety, and his initial disbelief—in the span of a few seconds—were entirely swallowed by a tidal wave of incomprehensible awe. He slowly stood up straight, his eyes staring blankly into the void.

On one hand: his own Imperial intelligence network. An entity fed with mountains of gold, backed by a flawless military hierarchy, and saturated with magical detection arrays. Yet they had been played like absolute fools by five hundred stealth-marching Blackiron Orcs. And on the other hand? A young Knight Captain trapped deep in the Misty Swamp. A man with zero logistical support from his Kingdom.

A man who was supposedly relying on a few hundred straggling survivors and looted scrap metal just to survive in a death zone. Exactly what kind of terrifying, divine methods was this young man named Soren using to pierce the veil and detect five hundred Blackiron Orcs executing a deep strike?! Even more horrifying... the moment he detected them, he instantly saw through the enemy's ultimate strategic intent—Lone Cliff!

And he decisively deployed high-mobility Warg Cavalry to execute a flawless, early-warning communication run! What kind of monstrous, razor-sharp intuition for war was this?!

"A genius... no. That is a monster," the grizzled veteran, General Marr, muttered under his breath, his eyes wide. To effortlessly pierce the fog of war with such flawless intelligence gathering... it completely defied all logic. Grand Duke Valentine took a long, deep breath, holding it before slowly exhaling. With that single breath, the lingering gloom and terror in his chest were completely swept away. He turned around and cast a deeply apathetic glance at the Intelligence Minister still shivering on the floor.

Suddenly, he felt utterly disgusted. Compared to a mastermind like Soren casually dictating the battlefield from a mudflat, these highly-paid, pampered "elites" under his command were nothing more than drooling toddlers playing in the dirt.

"Soren..." The Grand Duke chewed on the name for the fourth time today, letting the syllables roll off his tongue.

"Excellent! Absolutely brilliant, Soren!" The Grand Duke suddenly slammed his hands together in a thunderous clap, tossing his head back as he unleashed a booming, genuinely exhilarated laugh. The Grand Duke swept his imposing gaze over every single high-ranking Imperial general in the hall. Right then and there, he delivered an absolute, unshakeable verdict:"This boy's phantom-like mastery over military intelligence cannot be dismissed as the mere 'luck' of a mediocre man."

"With strategic insight of this terrifying caliber... he is the most priceless, peerless General our entire human coalition has seen in this era!"