Chương 215: 215：The Wyvern Threat & A Fatal Flaw

Warchief Blackstone unveiled a retaliatory strategy that shook even Zagar to his ethereal core.

"I will pen a missive by my own hand! I will personally coordinate with those arrogant, high-altitude nobles—the [Wyvern Knights]!" The Warchief slammed his massive fist against the table, his eyes burning as if he could already foresee the apocalyptic scene of destruction. The squadrons of wyverns nesting along the precipitous cliffs of the Blood Province were few in number, but they were a resource of incalculable strategic value.

These terrifying beasts boasted massive frames comparable to the Empire's royal griffons, possessed an astonishing payload capacity, and harbored a chilling, relentless flight endurance.

"The greatest, most fatal weakness of those dilapidated human border garrisons is their sheer lack of effective anti-air capabilities!" As the Warchief formulated his plan, he painted a brutal picture for Zagar.

"Hovering over that muddy, treacherous swamp, our wyverns will be the absolute, uncontested apex predators of the sky."

"In the dead of night, dozens of wyverns will take flight, each carrying hundreds of pounds of iron spikes and jagged boulders. Imagine it, Zagar! When a sky full of hardened timber and heavy stone plummets from a hundred meters in the air, the kinetic force alone will instantaneously crush Greywater Village's watchtowers and structures into splinters." Warchief Blackstone's vicious laughter magnified, echoing off the gloomy stone walls of the fortress.

"This aerial bombardment will completely paralyze Greywater Village's self-righteous, ground-based defensive arrays on the spot!"

"And that is the perfect window of opportunity I am creating for your decapitation strike!" The Warchief leaned forward, locking his gaze with the Shadow Priest.

"When Soren is scrambling in the dirt, completely overwhelmed by this airborne catastrophe, watching his precious defensive lines be reduced to scorched earth... That is the exact moment you, Zagar, will lead a newly forged vanguard to sever his head from his shoulders!" Meanwhile. Within the vaulted council chamber of Supreme Command at Megalith Fortress.

In days past, the atmosphere within this domed hall was suffocatingly grim, with the looming threat of a forty-thousand-strong Orcish army casting a heavy shadow over everyone's hearts. But at this very moment, a palpable, surging excitement filled every corner of the room. Towering magical sconces cast dancing, warm light across the stone walls.

Even the Imperial Iron Guards stationed in the corners—veterans who spent their days with faces carved from stone—couldn't hide the raw thrill of surviving an absolute disaster.

"Unbelievable... it's simply unbelievable!" A high-ranking general clad in heavy plate armor roughly tore at his tight collar, completely abandoning his aristocratic composure.

"Gentlemen, look at the timestamps and coordinates mapped out on this battle report! In a profoundly hostile environment blanketed in absolute visual obstruction like the Misty Swamp, how on earth did Soren manage to map the Orcs' troop movements like the back of his own hand?!" His exclamation instantly ignited a roaring chorus of agreement among the assembled generals. Sitting at the head of the heavy oak table was Grand Duke Valentine, his posture rigid against the intricately carved high-back chair.

The Supreme Commander of the North, having just brushed shoulders with the Reaper, did not answer immediately. He slowly stroked the coarse stubble on his chin, gazing quietly ahead, his mind racing with calculations. He knew exactly what this meant. On the brutal chessboard of war, pristine intelligence was often the deciding factor between life and death—far more valuable than the charge of the most elite heavy cavalry.

The mighty Holy Halycon Empire funneled tens of millions of gold coins annually into maintaining legions of high-tier mages and scouts, yet they were routinely played for fools by the Orcs' unpredictable maneuvers. Yet Soren, a mere Lord Commander of a thousand men tucked away in a backwater, death-trap swamp, had not only surgically pinpointed the Orc elites' kill-zones... he had mapped out the exact, highly-classified movements of the Blood Province Governor's nephew and a century-old Shadow Priest!

"It isn't just his martial prowess; his intelligence-gathering capabilities are terrifyingly acute. It's almost blindingly conspicuous," General Marr, the chief tactician, noted as he stroked his long beard. His tone was heavy with a profound mix of wariness and deep admiration. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. He turned to the Grand Duke and bowed deeply.

"My Lord, Soren must command an intelligence network operating on a paradigm we cannot even begin to fathom. His razor-sharp judgment of the battlefield can no longer be described as mere tactical talent... he is an incalculable asset to this Empire." Grand Duke Valentine nodded slowly.

"Gentlemen," his resonant voice echoed beneath the dome, instantly silencing the bustling hall.

"I suggest you swallow the arrogance you usually carry as the Empire's regular military."

"Two thousand elite Orcs annihilated. Bloodhorn Keep utterly uprooted. Soren and his Greywater Village have, in the span of a few short months and entirely from a position of absolute desperation, authored a literal miracle in the annals of military history." Valentine stood, leaning heavily onto the edge of the table. His piercing gaze swept over the powerful generals who usually looked down their noses at anyone lacking a noble crest.

"Once this bitter winter passes, every single commanding officer stationed along this defensive line—whether you are a Legion Commander leading ten thousand or a grunt Centurion—will form exchange delegations and march into that swamp!"

"You will go, and you will learn! You will engrave the essence of Greywater Village's training methodology and tactical doctrines into your minds, word for bloody word!" Not a single general in the room dared to voice a word of objection. Instead, expressions of profound reverence painted their faces. They weren't fools.

To execute a zero-casualty annihilation against two thousand heavily armored Orcs was a feat so absurd that any lingering 'Imperial Knight Pride' they harbored was completely worthless in the face of Soren's actual combat record.

"It won't just be you," General Marr added quietly, his voice drifting through the silence. He exchanged a solemn nod with Grand Duke Valentine.

"Once the fires of this campaign recede, the Grand Duke—who owes his very life to this young man's intervention—and myself... we shall personally shed our ceremonial regalia of Supreme Command and travel to Greywater Village."

"We intend to personally meet this anomaly who flipped the heavens and the earth." A collective gasp sucked the air out of the room. The Grand Duke and the Chief Tactician? Personally descending to the grassroots? Traveling to a remote, muddy village in the middle of a monster-infested swamp?! In the centuries-long history of the Empire, such an honor was completely unprecedented. Yet, looking at the battle reports, not a single officer in the room felt it was undeserved.

After the initial waves of excitement settled and the glow of the projection crystals on the table dimmed, General Marr slowly shifted his gaze toward the massive tactical sandbox occupying the center of the room. Visibly, the color drained from the old tactician's face.

"My Lord..." Marr's voice suddenly dropped to a chilling whisper. A cold undertone of lingering terror bled into his words, instantly drawing the room's atmosphere taut like a bowstring.

"There is one detail that demands our absolute, undivided vigilance." Valentine frowned deeply.

"Speak." Marr stepped up to the sandbox. Taking a long, slender command baton, he tapped the towering model of Megalith Fortress's defensive walls, then slowly dragged the tip across the table, drawing an invisible line straight back into Orc territory.

"We are all rightfully marveling at Soren's masterful interception. But have any of you considered the terrifying premise behind it?" Marr looked around.

"That Shadow Priest, Zagar, has survived for nearly a century. He is absolutely not a suicidal fool." Marr's voice rang out with crystal clarity.

"Since he dared to lead an escort of [Sons of Titan] directly across the frontline, intending to infiltrate this very fortress and execute a decapitation strike..." Marr's eyes swept over the frozen faces of the generals.

"What does that imply? It implies that, in Zagar's shrewd, highly-calculated judgment, our immensely proud magical defensive barrier—a bulwark the Empire spent millions of gold coins to construct—is completely defenseless against his shadow stealth!" The moment those words hung in the air, the council chamber grew so terrifyingly silent that the crackle of burning candle wax sounded like thunderclaps. Grand Duke Valentine violently flinched.

Cold sweat instantly erupted from the iron-blooded commander's spine, soaking through his undershirt. By the Gods, he was right! If the fortress's defensive arrays were truly airtight and shadow magic couldn't penetrate its walls... on what grounds would Zagar have ever dared to attempt an infiltration?!

"Are you saying..."

"Yes, My Lord." Marr nodded, genuine agony flashing in his eyes as his knuckles turned white around the baton.

"There must be a critical, fatal flaw in the fortress's magical barrier... a blind spot that even we are entirely oblivious to!" A suffocating wave of intense fear violently seized every general present. Instinctively, they turned to look at the massive, solid stone walls of the fortress around them, feeling as though an invisible, lethal peril was currently seeping out from the very cracks in the masonry.

"Remedy it immediately! Have every Court Mage and High Priest drop whatever they are doing right this second!" Valentine slammed his fist so hard against the edge of the sandbox that the wooden troop markers violently rattled.

"Tear the arrays apart and find that flaw! I don't care if you have to line the walls with pure Mithril or bathe the entire fortress in Holy Light! If there is even a single trace of shadow mana capable of leaking into this citadel by dawn, I will have the heads of the Chief Mages on pikes!" Having roared out that explosive command, Grand Duke Valentine slumped heavily back into his chair. Exhaling a long, shuddering breath of stale air, the Grand Duke looked at Marr.

At this moment, his internal gratitude toward the distant Lord of Greywater Village bordered on the fanatical.

"Soren... he saved Megalith Fortress again. Not only did he physically intercept the crisis, but his actions inadvertently forced us oblivious fools to realize a fatal oversight in our own home."

"Such boundless grace... such an earth-shattering list of monumental achievements..." Inevitably, the conversation finally circled around to the most realistic, yet profoundly thorny dilemma facing the Empire's high command.

"My Lord," General Marr sighed, gently tracing the edge of the sandbox as he laid the problem bare.

"The frontlines have achieved massive victories on multiple fronts, and the immediate crisis has been completely averted."

"But Soren has rendered unprecedented merits. He annihilated thousands of Orc elites, decapitated a Provincial Oracle, saved the life of the Supreme Commander, and successfully plugged a fatal vulnerability in our capital defense..." Marr looked at the Grand Duke, voicing the question everyone was thinking.

"Exactly what in the world... can we possibly reward him with?" That single, simple sentence carried the weight of a mountain, plunging Grand Duke Valentine into a deep, heavy silence.