Chương 148: 148：Modern Doctrine: Why Crippling Trumps Killing

The moment they entered the core sector, Soren called over his Quartermaster, Kyle, who was currently taking inventory of the army's attrition.

"Kyle, she was pierced by a heavy armor-piercing bolt. I stabilized the wound with a first-aid potion. The rest is up to you," Soren ordered as he swung himself out of the saddle. Kyle hurried forward. Possessing the [Herb Mastery] Talent, he was able to assess the depth and severity of Lyra's wound with a single glance. He immediately pulled several types of swamp moss—radiating a cooling, bitter scent—and dried beast bone powder from the pouch at his waist.

"Rest easy, my Lord. As long as the bone isn't completely shattered, my signature poultice guarantees she won't suffer any lingering hidden trauma." Kyle carefully helped Lyra off the warhorse and supported her toward the medical tents. As a Throwing Knife Master who had awakened to mana, Lyra's physical constitution far exceeded that of an ordinary human. Her mana passively circulated through her meridians, continuously accelerating her cellular regeneration.

Combined with Kyle's perfectly prescribed herbal poultices and Greywater Village's abundant daily supply of meat and Swamp Tubers... Miraculously, after just three days of rest, Lyra's bone-deep puncture wound had completely scabbed over. While she still couldn't engage in intense combat, walking normally and managing her basic daily routines was no longer an issue. At dusk on the third day. The setting sun bled across the horizon, dyeing the Misty Swamp into a sprawling ocean of crimson.

Inside the main command tent at the center of the territory. Under the soft glow of a magical crystal lamp, Soren was using a charcoal pencil to chart out a secure logistical route from Lone Cliff to Greywater Village on a rough parchment map. The heavy tent flap was gently pushed aside. The footsteps were nearly nonexistent. Had it not been for the automatic early warning triggered by his [Danger Sense], Soren would hardly have noticed anyone entering.

Lyra had changed into the coarse, dark linen clothes commonly worn by the women of Greywater Village, but the drab fabric did nothing to hide the lithe, panther-like physique forged by years of combat. Having washed the mud from her face, her stunningly cold features were now set in an unyielding mask of absolute resolve. And strapped conspicuously to her waist was a full bandolier of refined steel throwing knives, gleaming with a chilling light. She stopped exactly five paces from the command table.

Dropping heavily to one knee, she pressed her right hand over her heart and bowed her famously proud head.

"Lyra pays her respects to Lord Soren." Soren set down his charcoal pencil and looked up, his gaze passing through the candlelight to rest upon her.

"It seems Kyle's herbs are doing their job. You're recovering well."

"I will never forget your life-saving grace, my Lord." Lyra looked up, the rims of her eyes slightly red, but her tone was absolute iron.

"I have come to beg you to take me into your ranks. Even if it is just as a suicide-charger in the vanguard." She gritted her teeth.

"I want to follow you. I want to butcher every last one of those filthy orcs!" Hearing this impassioned pledge, Soren didn't immediately show any signs of joy. Instead, he leaned back in his wide mahogany chair, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. With a silent thought, he instantly activated the System's appraisal skill. Hum! A pale blue holographic screen, visible only to Soren, materialized directly above Lyra's head.

[Target: Lyra] [Talents: Throwing Knife Master (Grandmaster-Tier), Basic Mana Affinity]"Taking you in is not an issue," Soren said, his tone slowly turning sharp as he stared directly into her eyes.

"However. Three days ago, in those woods. Given the precision of your blades, you clearly had countless opportunities to slice open the carotid arteries of those Black Iron Orcs from sixty paces away."

"But you didn't." Soren's piercing gaze seemed to bore straight through her soul.

"You chose to let your mana completely run dry. You chose to be treated like prey and pinned to a tree. You only ever attacked their thighs or their joints."

"Tell me. Why?" That question struck like a thousand-pound boulder directly against Lyra's heart. Her body violently flinched. Her breathing hitched, turning ragged, and all the color instantly drained from her face, leaving her as pale as paper. She bit her lower lip so hard it began to bleed. Under Soren's all-seeing, oppressive gaze, her psychological defenses completely shattered. The nightmarish memories buried in the deepest, darkest recesses of her mind surged forward like a ruptured dam.

She squeezed her eyes shut in agony, hot tears sliding down her cheeks.

"Because... because I am a cursed woman..." Lyra's voice trembled, choking on a sob thick with profound, suffocating pain. Slowly, she confessed the horrific tragedy that had unfolded when she was seven years old. Her mana had unexpectedly gone violently out of control. Two razor-sharp wind blades had punched straight through her parents' hearts. She remembered the boiling blood spraying across her innocent face.

"From the exact moment my parents collapsed... whenever my eyes try to lock onto the lethal vitals of any living thing..." Stolen novel; please report. Lyra held out her slender hands. Even without holding a blade, they were violently trembling, seizing in uncontrollable spasms.

"My hands refuse to obey me. My vision is completely swallowed by a sea of crimson blood."

"My Lord, I know how pathetic and cowardly this sounds, but I simply cannot cross that hurdle." She choked out the words in pure despair.

"My throwing knives can absolutely never deal a fatal blow to a living being. Even though I hate the orcs to the marrow of my bones... I can't kill them!" She dropped her head in sheer misery, looking like a lone goose with broken wings, abandoning herself to her doom as she awaited his judgment. Throughout her past mercenary career, countless commanders had been disgusted by this fatal, laughable weakness, kicking her out of their camps like a stray dog.

In this brutal world, an assassin who was terrified of striking a vital organ was less useful than a scullery maid in the kitchens. The command tent fell into a long, heavy silence. The only sound was the crackle and pop of burning pine resin from the torches. Lyra had fully prepared herself to be mocked, humiliated, and exiled from the camp. However. Clap. Clap. Clap. Far from mocking her, Soren slowly and deliberately began to applaud.

This incredibly abnormal reaction caused Lyra to snap her head up in sheer shock, only to meet Soren's gaze—a gaze filled with absolute, blazing admiration.

"And this is the reason you loathe yourself?" Soren stood up, walked around the heavy desk, and strode right up to her. Without a shred of hesitation, he reached out, grabbed both of her violently trembling wrists, and forcefully hoisted her hands up right between them.

"Lyra. Looking at this through the harshest, most clinical military lens..." Soren's voice exploded in her ears like thunder.

"You are not broken. You have simply been buried by a bunch of tactically illiterate idiots!" As a former elite Special Forces operator in his past life, Soren possessed modern combat doctrines that surpassed this primitive world by thousands of years. He released her wrists and smoothly drew a refined steel throwing knife from her belt, casually spinning it through his fingers at a blinding, dizzying speed.

"Listen to me."

"In an environment like the Misty Swamp—where visibility rarely exceeds fifty meters, where the terrain is choked with narrow defiles, rotting mud, and toxic vines..."

"The parabolic fire of my Longbow Battalion is severely hindered by the towering ancient trees. The reload speed of heavy siege crossbows is far too slow, and firing them instantly exposes the sniper's position." Thwack! Soren violently slammed the throwing knife into the corner of the heavy wooden table.

"But in mid-to-close-range counter-reconnaissance and skirmish warfare? Throwing knives possess a tactical value that bows and crossbows cannot even begin to touch!"

"There is no creak of a drawing bowstring. There is no heavy mechanical ratcheting of a crossbow crank! It is completely, absolutely silent!"

"Furthermore, your throwing speed is blisteringly fast. Layered with your mana affinity, you are effectively a suppressed, rapid-fire lethal weapon!" Soren pointed a finger directly at Lyra, whose face was completely frozen in shock. His tone climbed, brimming with absolute authority.

"You just said you're afraid to strike an enemy's lethal vitals on the battlefield?"

"Wrong! You are dead wrong!"

"In the brutal meat-grinder of true cold-weapon warfare, killing an enemy outright is not always the optimal solution!"

"Think about it! You slice the femoral ligaments of a fully grown Black Iron Orc, or you put a blade clean through their kneecaps. That terrifying monster doesn't die. But his mobility is instantly, permanently paralyzed."

"A three-hundred-pound orc casualty, lying in the acidic mud of the swamp, doing nothing but howling in agony and bleeding profusely... what kind of tactical impact do you think that has?" Soren let out a cold, predatory laugh.

"For those orcs who preach clan brotherhood and pack mentality? A critically wounded comrade is a bottomless pit! Not only does their screaming utterly shatter the psychological defenses of the surrounding troops..."

"Just to drag that massive brute back to the rear, it requires at least two to three completely healthy orc warriors to act as stretcher-bearers!"

"You miss the vitals by an inch. It looks like you failed to secure a kill. But in reality? With a single throwing knife, you have instantly erased the combat effectiveness of three or four frontline enemy troops!" Soren's final words hammered down like iron onto an anvil.

"In this toxic, insect-infested swamp, where medical supplies are completely nonexistent... inflicting widespread, crippling casualties is the absolute most lethal poison you could possibly inject into the Orcish Warband's logistics and morale!" This pure doctrine of modern military attrition warfare—the tactic of deliberately wounding an enemy to multiply their logistical burden—struck Lyra like an absolute epiphany.

It was a bolt of lightning that instantly, violently shattered the suffocating psychological chains that had imprisoned her soul for twenty years.