Chương 252: 252：A True Commander, True Brothers

Behind the rocky cover. The battlefield recording scholar, Lucia, was completely paralyzed. Her quill hovered frozen in mid-air, a heavy drop of ink falling to blot the parchment below. Her entire body shuddered violently—not from the biting cold, but from the sheer, reality-shattering shock unfolding before her eyes!

"Such... such utterly barbaric firepower..." Lucia muttered, her face pale with awe as she stared at the seventy Black Steel Elites ruthlessly harvesting lives. In her vast knowledge of military history, not even the Silvermoon Kingdom's most elite Royal Guard could ever hope to achieve such a terrifying combat record.

"Border garrison troops are under-equipped? They can only hold the line by piling up corpses? Bullshit!" Lucia screamed in her mind, her previous worldview completely pulverized.

"Soren... just how in the gods' names did he forge an army like this?" Meanwhile, up on the crumbling ramparts of the mountain pass. The barbarian warriors of the steppes, who just moments ago had braced themselves to die alongside their fortress, were now standing absolutely dumbfounded. They stared blankly at the one-sided slaughter playing out below. Vice-chief Sangho's solitary eye was blown wide open.

He didn't even notice when his white-knuckled grip finally loosened, letting his shattered blade clatter onto the bloody stones.

"By the Eternal Sky... what am I looking at?" Sangho muttered, his cracked, blood-stained lips trembling.

"That black armor... those endless heavy repeaters... the magic arrows raining from the heavens..." These hardened men of the steppes—men whose wages and rations had been ruthlessly embezzled by the Ironpeak Duchy year after year, men who didn't even possess a single unchipped iron sword among them—had never in their lives witnessed an allied force boasting such opulent equipment and devastating combat power!

In their eyes, this Greywater Village unit was a force of nature, executing a breathtaking, overwhelmingly one-sided war of annihilation right on the fringes of the Broken Blade Mountains!

"Reinforcements... it's really reinforcements!" Talon leaned heavily on his greatsword, struggling to pull his battered body upright. His exceptional hunter's vision pierced the howling blizzard, locking dead onto the man wielding the cyan longbow on the left-hand ridge. The moment he recognized that familiar face, a violent shudder wracked Talon's massive frame. Hot tears instantly spilled over his blood-caked cheeks.

"It's Soren! It's Lord Soren of Greywater Village!" Raising his blood-soaked greatsword high, Talon threw his head back and unleashed a feral, ecstatic roar:"He didn't lie to us! He really came!" At the mention of that name, the barbarian warriors atop the ramparts erupted into a sheer frenzy. Their morale, which had hit absolute rock bottom just moments before, instantly exploded like a powder keg!

"Lord Soren! The bloody reaper who beheaded the governor's nephew!"

"It's too fast! How did they get here so fast?!" Talon's heart pounded with profound shock. He knew perfectly well that Greywater Village was over a hundred kilometers away, separated by brutal, treacherous mountain terrain! A forced march across the mountains... arriving like gods descending from the heavens! This... this is what a true commander looks like! Vice-chief Sangho violently wiped the mix of blood and tears from his face.

Overcome with euphoria, the grizzled veteran practically jumped up and down, his face flushed red as he screamed:"Brothers! We're saved! The men of the Steppes are finally saved!"

"Commander Noga... is dead?!" In the center of the chaotic battlefield, a towering Orc Centurion hauled back hard on his Warg's reins. His slitted yellow eyes, previously swimming with bloodlust, were now wide with uncontrollable, primal terror. He had witnessed it with his own eyes. The arrogant, untouchable Commander Noga had his throat violently perforated by an arrow wreathed in a cyan storm.

The magical blast had shredded half of Noga's skull, sending his stiff corpse tumbling off his mount and straight into a muddy pool of blood. But it wasn't just the death of their commander! Trembling, the Centurion cast his gaze across the battlefield, taking in a slaughter so gruesome it threatened to rupture his gall bladder. Those seventy human infantrymen clad in matte black steel full-plate. The relentless, mechanical thrum of their heavy repeating crossbows.

With every synchronized volley, a perfectly straight path of gore, severed limbs, and ruptured torsos was violently carved through the dense Orc formations. From the high ground, the magical rangers rained down a devastating tempest of wind-blade arrows. On the periphery, ninety-three wolf riders darted in and out of the fray with silent, lethal precision, carving up the stragglers.

"These humans are demons!" The deep-seated contempt the Centurion had always harbored for human armies was instantly pulverized. In the past, when facing regular human legions, it only took a few savage charges to shatter their defensive lines. But today, the sheer tactical discipline and apocalyptic firepower displayed by this mysterious human force entirely transcended the limits of Orcish comprehension.

"We can't break them... Retreat! Fall back!" The primal instinct to survive completely crushed any lingering will to fight. Casting aside military law and Orcish honor, the Centurion viciously yanked his Warg around and let out a hysterical, throat-tearing howl of retreat. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. That single howl snapped the Orcs' final psychological thread.

With their Commander dead, the remaining Centurions and Decurions were already panicking. Seeing one of their own turning tail, whatever fragile resolve they had left instantly evaporated.

"Run! Get out of this death trap!" What had begun as a ferocious, desperate breakout attempt instantly devolved into a chaotic, catastrophic rout! Thousands of Black Iron Orcs cast aside their heavy weapons and helmets. Mad with panic, they violently shoved and trampled one another to squeeze through the narrow mountain passes. Driven completely insane by fear, many even swung their battleaxes to hack down their own kin blocking the path. Massive Wargs crushed their own infantry underfoot.

Screams of agony and savage curses echoed endlessly through the valley. The mountainside was swarming with utterly terrified Orcs. Under the merciless pursuit of heavy bolts and magical wind blades, they left behind a carpet of mangled corpses as they fled miserably into the howling depths of the blizzard. The casualties were innumerable. The thick snowdrifts were dyed a dark, morbid crimson, the sheer volume of Orcish blood pooling into steaming, hot rivulets.

Standing atop the high vantage point, Soren watched the routed alien horde with cold, calculating eyes. He did not issue the order to pursue.

"Never press a desperate enemy too hard. In this freezing weather and treacherous terrain, a blind pursuit is practically begging for a counter-ambush." Soren smoothly unstrung the Windwhisper Bow and stowed it on his back. Drawing his steel longsword, he slashed it through the air in a sharp arc, his chilling command ringing across the battlefield:"Cease fire! All units, secure and sweep the battlefield!" Soren vaulted down from the rocky outcrop, his leather boots squelching into the bloody, mud-churned snow.

When dealing with these Greenskin monsters and their absurd vitality, there was absolutely no room for misplaced mercy.

"Form up in pairs! Overlapping cover! Do not touch or examine the corpses—I don't care how dead they look. Double-tap them with your halberds!" Soren strode up to an Orc Decurion whose torso had been half-pulped by a heavy bolt, yet was still violently twitching. Without a fraction of hesitation, Soren thrust his longsword straight into the monster's eye socket, twisting the blade ruthlessly to thoroughly extinguish whatever life remained.

"Remember your training!" Soren barked to his elites.

"An Orc's heart is positioned slightly differently than a human's, and their vitality is freakish! To prevent them from playing dead and taking one of you down with them, you aim for the eye sockets, the throat, or the base of the skull! Total penetration of the vitals! I do not want a single enemy breathing on my battlefield!"

"Yes, Commander!" The seventy Black Steel Elites immediately commenced the sweep. They advanced in eerie silence through the mountains of corpses and lakes of blood, their armor-piercing heavy halberds thrusting mercilessly into the vitals of every fallen Orc. Occasionally, a Greenskin attempting to play dead would try to launch a desperate ambush, only to be brutally pinned to the earth by a halberd before they could even fully rise.

Still sheltered behind her cover, the scholar Lucia watched the grim scene unfold, her quill flying rapidly across the parchment. She didn't find Soren cruel; instead, a profound reverence swelled within her.

"Cold. Efficient. Leaving absolutely no loose ends."

"His utter ruthlessness toward the enemy is the greatest form of mercy he can show his own men." Lucia marveled inwardly. This was the true path of a commander—the kind of leader who could not only survive this chaotic era, but perhaps even end it.... Meanwhile, down at the mountain pass of the Broken Blade Mountains. The battered, splintered fortress gates were slowly pushed open.

The Barbarian Chief, Talon, dragging his hastily bandaged leg, limped out of the stronghold, supported by Vice-chief Sangho and a few surviving lieutenants. These hardened warriors of the steppes—men who mere minutes ago were engaged in a suicidal bloodbath, entirely convinced they were about to die—now looked out over the sea of butchered Orcs and the highly disciplined, heavily armored human forces before them. It felt as though they had awoken from a horrific nightmare into another lifetime.

Pushing away Sangho's supporting hands, Talon forced his massive, muscular frame to stand perfectly straight. He limped forward, stopping directly in front of Soren. Thud! This intensely proud Chieftain of the Steppes—an iron-willed warrior who hadn't so much as buckled his knees when facing down an army of five thousand Orcs—dropped to one knee in the blood-soaked mud without a single moment of hesitation. Slamming his massive fist over his left breast, he bowed his head deeply.

"Lord Soren! With the Eternal Sky as my witness! I, Talon, on behalf of my brothers of the Steppes, offer you my deepest gratitude for sparing our lives!" Talon's voice was hoarse and trembling, saturated with infinite gratitude and a profound, agonizing bitterness:"The regular armies of the Ironpeak Duchy hoard the finest equipment and gorge themselves on the best rations, yet they tossed us here to die as disposable meat shields!

Their main camp is entrenched a mere thirty miles away, yet they sat back and watched as we bled out!"