Chương 140: 140：Collapse of the Master Plan

This was the physical body he had reconstructed using forbidden shadow magic—a form born of a terrible price. Beneath that paper-pale skin flowed not blood, but shadow energy as thick as dark ink.

"Aside from a somewhat dulled sense of pain, the blessing of the shadows is a hundred times superior to a fragile mortal shell." Zagar spread his left hand, allowing a wisp of black netherfire to weave playfully between his fingers. Just one week ago, this very Shadow Priest had pulled off a piece of absolute madness destined for the history books.

Collaborating with traitors planted deep behind human lines, he had personally led eight Sons of Titan through a forgotten underground passage, bypassing the frontlines entirely to infiltrate the heavily fortified capital of the Silvermoon Kingdom itself! On that pitch-black, wind-howling night, eight four-meter-tall behemoths, clad in natural stone armor, savagely smashed through the iron gates of the Silvermoon Kingdom's Minister of War's estate.

Before the monstrous strength of the Sons of Titan—creatures capable of tearing magical beasts limb from limb—the elite human guards were nothing but paper toys. Spears snapped. Heavy shields shattered. Blood not only dyed the ornate carpets red but pooled around the unrecognizable meat paste that had once been several high-ranking, warmongering nobles. The Silvermoon City Garrison had reacted quickly, even deploying Royal Court Mages.

But under the cover of Zagar's unfathomable shadow barriers, the strike team slaughtered their targets and swaggered out through the sewer network. A few of the Sons of Titan suffered superficial flesh wounds, but the squad returned to the fortress virtually unscathed.

"Hahahaha!" Recalling the glorious raid, Warchief Blackstone let out a thunderous, echoing laugh.

"Silvermoon City? The supposedly impregnable heart of the Silvermoon Kingdom? Faced with your shadows and my warriors, it was as defenseless as a stripped whore!" Zagar casually toyed with an intricately carved gold chalice—a trophy from the raid. His tone dripped with absolute disdain.

"Humans... those self-proclaimed 'noble' lords are pathetically soft."

"Warchief, with those few pro-war nobles dead, the cowardly bureaucratic rats in the Kingdom's rear will instantly devolve into endless political infighting. The supply lines for the human forces here in the Misty Swamp will rot from the inside out within weeks." This shared contempt fueled an unshakeable confidence regarding the upcoming decisive battle. The Warchief's singular eye dropped back to the beast-hide map resting on the table.

His massive finger tapped heavily against a high-altitude location marked by a chunk of red ore. Lone Cliff. Warchief Blackstone clenched his fist tightly.

"The Silvermoon Kingdom's Crimson Moon Knights call themselves the ultimate elites, but that red-haired bitch, Leona, is just a brute who knows how to swing a broadsword."

"I placed the Bloodaxe Battalion right on Lone Cliff for one reason: to explicitly shove it in their faces that their precious winter grain reserves are under direct threat. If the humans don't want to starve to death in this cursed mudhole, they are forced to try and chew through my Bloodaxe boys." Zagar let out a raspy chuckle, playing along.

"They will shatter their teeth trying, Warchief."

"The terrain at Lone Cliff is far too steep; the humans' prized heavy cavalry cannot deploy. They have no choice but to send their pitiful infantry in a suicidal uphill charge. And waiting for them at the peak are five hundred elites, clad head-to-toe in black iron heavy armor."

"Exactly!" Warchief Blackstone snorted, twin plumes of arrogant white steam blowing from his nostrils.

"Even if the Silvermoon Kingdom marches their absolute finest heavy infantry regiments straight up that slope... facing my fearless Bloodaxe berserkers, they won't take a single step onto Eaglebeak Ridge without leaving two thousand corpses on the rocks and bleeding for three to five days straight!" In Warchief Blackstone's mind, checkmate had already been achieved. Storming a fortified high-ground position was a universal military nightmare. The Warchief slammed his massive palm onto the edge of the map.

"And three to five days is more than enough time for my four thousand troops scattered in the outer swamps to close the pincer! As long as the Bloodaxe Battalion bogs down their main force, my thousands of axe-wielding warriors will seal the perimeter. We'll squeeze the human army in the Misty Swamp until they burst like rotten strawberries!"

"To our impending slaughter," the Warchief toasted, raising his massive wooden mug of ale.

"To the glory of Bloodfang Fortress," Zagar echoed, raising his golden chalice. Down in the blood-soaked sands of the arena, the gladiatorial match finally reached its brutal conclusion. With a guttural roar, one orc cleaved his opponent's chest wide open with a rusty axe. A shower of crimson rained down upon the sands as thousands of spectators erupted into frenzied howling. High up on the viewing platform, the two supreme rulers of the orc horde laughed boisterously.

To them, the massive war for the Misty Swamp was already over. Victory was set in stone. However. Before Warchief Blackstone could even bring the frothing ale to his lips... BANG! The heavy iron-bound doors at the rear of the viewing platform were violently thrown open, the echoing crash shaking the dust from the domed ceiling.

"Who dares interrupt—" Warchief Blackstone's thick brows snapped together in absolute fury. He was half a second away from ordering whichever blind slave had barged in to be dragged out and flayed alive, but the roar died in his throat. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Stumbling through the doorway was an Elder Shaman, one of the elite few responsible for the Warband's arcane communication slabs.

This old shaman, a figure of immense reverence within the Warband, didn't even have his ceremonial bone staff—he had dropped it somewhere in his frantic sprint. His face was the color of a fresh corpse. The war-painted muscles of his cheeks were spasming violently. He was drenched in a cold, terrified sweat.

"W-Warchief! Dis... disaster!" The old shaman's teeth chattered so hard they audibly clicked.

"Shut your mouth! What are you panicking for?!" Zagar snapped viciously. A chilling aura of shadow magic instantly locked onto the trembling shaman.

"Breathe and speak clearly. Did one of the flanking wolf-rider centurias get bogged down in the mud again? How many times did I say to pack extra direwolves?!" Even the usually unflappable Warchief frowned, pressing directly.

"Has the timeline been delayed? Give me the frontline report."

"Lone Cliff... The Bloodaxe Battalion holding Lone Cliff..." The old shaman fell to his knees, raising the shattered remnants of a cyan communication slab high above his head with trembling hands.

"They're gone! All of them! The five hundred soul brands anchored within the slab... they were all snuffed out! In an instant!"

"What do you mean 'snuffed out'? What kind of delusional nonsense are you spouting?" Warchief Blackstone's brain completely rejected the words. The old shaman slammed his forehead violently against the stone floor, drawing blood.

"The Bloodaxe Battalion has been utterly annihilated!"

"The final transmission sent just moments ago... A human named Soren stormed the peak of Eaglebeak Ridge!"

"Captain Garrosh was publicly beheaded by this Soren! Five hundred heavy-armored elites were butchered to the very last man! Not a single warrior made it off that cliff alive!"

"Lone Cliff has completely fallen into human hands!" CRACK! Without even realizing it, Warchief Blackstone's massive hand clenched, instantly crushing his thick wooden mug into splinters! The frothing ale spilled uselessly onto the stone floor. The air on the viewing platform froze solid. The two supreme commanders, who mere seconds ago had been toasting to an inevitable slaughter and mocking the frailty of humans, completely froze. Absolute shock. Complete absurdity.

A wave of mind-shattering disbelief crashed over Warchief Blackstone.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" It was Zagar who lost control first, letting out a shrill, completely unhinged shriek. The sheer psychological shock caused his magically constructed body to violently destabilize. Plumes of black shadow energy began to erupt from beneath his pale skin, hissing and boiling away into the air like water hitting a hot iron pan.

"Even if the humans deployed the Holy Halycon Empire's sacred knights themselves, it would be impossible! Five hundred heavy-armored Black Iron Orcs holding a high-ground chokepoint! How the hell did the humans take it?! Even if they threw human waves at the slopes and literally tried to pave a path with their own corpses, it would take half a day just to reach the summit!"

For the very first time in his life, the calculating Shadow Priest who believed he controlled the entire chessboard felt an overwhelming, maddening insult to his intelligence.

"An hour?! It hasn't even been an hour since the humans began their assault!"

"Did the entire human army sprout wings and fly over the barricades?! Even if Garrosh had tied up five hundred literal pigs and let the humans hack at them, they couldn't butcher them all in less than an hour!" Beside him, Warchief Blackstone's mind was racing, desperately trying to map out the tactical impossible. As the supreme commander of a hundred-thousand-strong Warband, he understood the defensive properties of Lone Cliff better than anyone. He had run simulations on the war table dozens of times.

For humanity to launch a frontal assault on that terrain was pure, undeniable suicide. But the cold, hard truth was laid bare on the floor. The soul brands of the arcane slab did not lie. Five hundred of his finest elites were undeniably dead. Which meant... this human, this Soren, possessed a terrifying, unprecedented method of siege warfare. And far worse... The bait was gone!

In Warchief Blackstone's mind, the massive, flawless web of his counter-encirclement trap had just had a massive hole blown straight through its center. The horrifying reality set in immediately: with the central bait completely devoured, the thousands of orc warriors currently marching out of position to flank the humans had completely lost their tactical anchor. Instead of closing a net, their painfully overextended marching lines had suddenly become a glaring, fatal weakness!

Without a central anvil to hold the humans in place, his scattered, marching units would stumble blindly into the teeth of a human monster capable of vaporizing five hundred heavy infantry in an hour! The hunters would instantly become the prey of a piecemeal slaughter!

"Immediately..." The Warchief's vision literally swam red with blistering rage.

"W-Warchief?" the old shaman looked up, trembling.

"BEAT THE WAR DRUMS OF RETREAT!" Warchief Blackstone erupted in an earth-shattering roar that threatened to tear the fortress apart.

"Fire the flare arrows! Use every remaining communication slab we have! Tell the four thousand troops currently marching toward the Lone Cliff basin to abort their advance and drag their asses back to the fortress!"

"Halt all troop movements! RETREAT!"