Chương 278: 278：The Ruined Fortress of Abysswater

Two days later, at dusk. The setting sun bled a violent, crimson red across the horizon. The biting northern wind whipped pulverized snow across the desolate plains, howling like a dying beast. Ahead, the sprawling yet heavily ruined silhouette of a massive city loomed over the distant earth, completely blocking the path forward. Abysswater Keep. This once-prosperous capital of an Imperial vassal state had fallen to the Orc Alliance an entire decade ago.

Now, the intricate stone carvings that once represented the pinnacle of human civilization atop the walls had been smashed to dust. In their place stood crude, barbaric Orc totems, flanked by terrifying, blood-curdling slogans painted in dark, dried blood. At the towering, heavily reinforced main gates of the fortress, two rows of Black Iron Orc guards gripped their heavy axes. Their slit-like eyes swept greedily over the humans entering and exiting the city.

Soren and his personal guard, Lyra, had already changed into oversized, tattered burlap cloaks. Soren had wrapped his signature [Windwhisper Bow] tightly in dirty rags, strapping it to his back so he perfectly resembled a destitute merchant hauling a long bundle of cheap goods. Lyra had tucked her radiant silver hair entirely into her hood and smeared coarse ash across her face. She followed closely, half a step behind Soren.

"My Lord, the Orcs didn't slaughter all the humans in this city," Lyra whispered, her voice kept incredibly low. Through the gap in her hood, she watched the endless stream of humans shuffling in and out of the gates—their clothes in tatters, their expressions hollow and entirely numb.

"Of course not." Soren's pace remained steady as he blended seamlessly into the crowd. In his mind, he activated [Eagle Eye Perception]. His vision effortlessly pierced straight through the Orc guards' defensive perimeter, flawlessly surveying the layout and troop distribution inside the fortress.

"Barbaric Orcs have absolutely no talent for farming or weaving."

"They need massive numbers of human slaves to grow their grain. They need human artisans to forge their iron and repair their harnesses. And above all, they need to bleed these commoners dry, extorting their meager savings as taxes." Soren's voice was cold and entirely pragmatic.

"Here, humans are not treated as equal living beings. They are livestock, penned in for the slaughter." Without drawing the slightest bit of attention, the two flawlessly bypassed the Orc guards' incredibly lax inspection. Blending in alongside a few broken wooden carts hauling firewood, they successfully infiltrated Abysswater Keep. The moment they stepped foot inside, a gag-inducing stench of rotting garbage and open sewage hit them like a physical wall.

The once-grand, wide avenues were now suffocatingly desolate. The luxurious merchant shops lining the streets had their doors firmly boarded up. Only a few crude, makeshift stalls remained, shivering in the freezing wind. In a plaza not far away, several green-skinned Orc overseers were violently cracking spiked leather whips, viciously lashing a group of human laborers who were struggling to haul massive stone blocks. Harrowing, blood-curdling screams echoed through the fortress.

Yet, the surrounding human civilians were so thoroughly traumatized and numb that the brutal scene didn't draw a single onlooker. Faced with the tragic torment of her own kind, Lyra's fingers instinctively hooked the throwing knives hidden in her sleeves. A razor-sharp, freezing killing intent surged in her eyes.

"Stay your hand, Lyra." Soren reached out, placing a firm hand on her shoulder.

"Killing a few overseers won't save them. It will only trigger a completely unhinged massacre by the Orc garrison against the civilians. Our objective isn't here." Just as Soren prepared to navigate his memory's map toward the western sector of the city to find 'The Rose' tavern... Ding! A crisp, electronic chime—audible only to Soren—suddenly echoed from the absolute depths of his mind. [System Prompt: 'Talent Scout' Triggered!] [Locking onto a High-Potential Talent within a 10-kilometer radius!] [Name: Duran] [Coordinates: 1, 200 meters Southeast] Soren's footsteps violently halted. Beneath his hood, his eyes instantly ignited with a piercing, brilliant light.

"A talent?" Soren was internally shocked. He knew perfectly well that in this vast, brutal world of cold steel, anyone evaluated by the [Warlord System] as a 'Talent' was an apex individual. They were ferocious, once-in-a-generation warriors entirely capable of shouldering massive responsibilities and single-handedly shifting the tides of a localized battlefield!

"I still have two hours before the rendezvous with Alaric. The sky isn't completely dark yet." Soren's mind raced, rapidly weighing his schedule before making a decisive pivot.

"Lyra, follow me. Southeast." The two immediately altered their route, weaving through a labyrinth of dark, foul-smelling alleyways. Guided by the system's precise coordinates, they soon arrived at a relatively bustling, densely packed slum street. This appeared to be a black market and rudimentary food exchange, spontaneously formed by the human civilians struggling to survive within the fortress.

The street was lined with dilapidated stalls, where desperate humans exchanged handfuls of copper coins for coarse, grit-filled black bread. Soren's gaze rapidly swept through the crowd like a hunting hawk. Finally, his eyes locked dead onto a grain stall at the very end of the street. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Standing there was an exceptionally massive, heavily muscled young human man.

In this biting, freezing weather, the surrounding people wished they could wrap themselves in ten layers of rags just to survive. Yet, this young man wore nothing but a thin, sleeveless leather vest, fully exposing two impossibly thick, corded arms. At this moment, with his back to the street, he was casually unloading grain from a battered wooden cart.

"My Lord... that man... he's highly unusual." As a prodigy endowed with the [Throwing Knife Master] talent, Lyra possessed a hyper-acute understanding of human biomechanics, muscle structure, and kinetic alignment that far surpassed ordinary people. It took her exactly one glance to spot the terrifying anomaly. Leaning close to Soren's ear, Lyra whispered, her voice laced with profound astonishment:"Look at the sack of sorghum in his hand. It's damp.

Based on the volume, that single sack weighs at least three hundred pounds!"

"If an ordinary man—even two burly laborers working together—tried to lift that, their faces would turn crimson, and their legs would stagger." Lyra's eyes were glued to the young man's every micro-movement:"But he just grabbed a single corner of the burlap sack with one hand. He didn't even bend his back to brace his core. With just a subtle, effortless flick of his wrist, he hoisted three hundred pounds of dead weight into the air and stacked it perfectly onto his stall."

Listening to Lyra's breakdown, Soren gave a slight nod. The profound interest in his eyes only deepened. Lyra continued her low, highly analytical dissection, pointing out the deeply hidden, terrifying combat implications:"Furthermore, look at his lower body stance. When he drops that massive weight, his breathing rhythm doesn't falter for a microsecond."

"That level of flawless muscle control and skeletal weight-distribution... that is absolutely not the result of years of manual labor! He has practiced an incredibly profound, lethal art of close-quarters combat!"

"He belongs to the rare, hyper-lethal [Brawler] discipline! They completely abandon standard weaponry, specializing entirely in forging their physical bodies into lethal instruments. Using grapples, chokeholds, and devastating heavy strikes, they are men capable of snapping an Orc's neck barehanded in extreme close-quarters!" Hearing this, absolute clarity washed over Soren. A barehanded combat master.

In the chaotic, claustrophobic confines of urban alleyway warfare, or the brutal meat-grinder of a shield-wall clash, a man like this was an absolute, terrifyingly destructive force!

"In this brutal era ravaged by Orcs, a talent of this caliber shouldn't be rotting away in front of a broken stall selling damp sorghum." Soren murmured softly. Without hesitation, he walked directly toward the young man named Duran.

"Boss, how much for the sorghum?" Soren asked, stopping right in front of the stall. Duran turned around, revealing a rugged face shadowed by short, coarse stubble.

"Three copper coins a pound. Two coppers if it's mixed with sand," Duran replied, his voice deep and muffled.

"I'll take it all," Soren stated, his tone impeccably calm. Duran froze slightly. He clearly hadn't expected that in this lifeless, suffocating fortress, anyone would have the coin to buy hundreds of pounds of grain in a single transaction. He slowly raised his head. His eyes narrowed, brimming with razor-sharp caution as he sized up the man whose face was mostly hidden beneath a burlap hood. Right at that exact second. Soren suddenly raised his right hand.

His thumb pressed firmly against his middle finger, pinching a heavy, standard-issue Silvermoon Kingdom silver coin between the tips. SWISH! Soren flicked his finger. Empowered by the monstrous, terrifying kinetic output of his [Faint Titan Bloodline], the coin did not trace a gentle arc like standard payment. Instead, it was launched at an incomprehensible, blistering speed!

It violently tore through the freezing air, emitting a high-pitched, lethal shriek as it transformed into a deadly projectile aimed directly at Duran's chest! If this strike hit an ordinary man, it possessed enough sheer kinetic force to shatter their sternum on impact. Faced with this sudden, lethal, and lightning-fast test... Duran's eyes instantly shrank into pinpricks. Yet, astoundingly, he didn't make a single motion to dodge. His thick, corded right arm suddenly blurred into an afterimage.

Two fingers, as hard as cold iron, snapped together with flawless, mechanical precision right in front of his chest. SMACK! A dull, explosive crack echoed in the air. That silver coin, packed with staggering kinetic devastation, was perfectly, immovably clamped between Duran's two fingers. The violent shockwave of the impact traveled instantly from his fingers down into his wrist. But Duran merely took a sharp, deep breath. The muscles along his entire arm rippled sequentially for a fraction of a second.

Pressing his wrist downward, he forcibly and perfectly redirected that tyrannical kinetic force straight through his body and into the bluestone pavement beneath his feet! CRACK! The solid stone slab directly beneath Duran's boots instantly spider-webbed with hairline fractures!

"What terrifying neural reflexes. What a domineering kinetic redirection technique." Soren praised internally, genuinely impressed. Duran slowly raised his head. In the depths of his eyes, the ferocious, bloodthirsty aura unique only to a battle-hardened killer began to bleed through his mundane disguise.