Chương 284: 284：The Overlord's Feast

The trio had barely stepped into a narrow, sewage-choked alleyway when a massive squad of fully armed Orc patrols burst through the thick smoke, howling in rage as they surrounded the now-empty grain stall. After weaving through the labyrinthine, pitch-black alleys of the slum for a full ten minutes... Relying entirely on Soren's supernatural dynamic vision and [Danger Perception], the trio miraculously evaded six separate Orc search grids.

Finally, they halted in front of an ancient, rusted, and long-abandoned underground sewer grate. Huff... Huff... Duran panted heavily, leaning his massive frame against the damp, slime-coated stone wall. At this moment, all traces of his former hesitation and internal conflict had vanished entirely. The life-and-death bloodbath just moments ago, compounded by the Orc's venomous threat to feed his mother to the dogs, had completely shattered his pathetic, naive illusion of scraping by.

In this meat-grinder of an era, yielding to barbaric, abusive aliens only guaranteed the total annihilation of his family! The only path forward was to grip cold steel, pledge his life to a true apex warlord, and fight tooth and nail to defend what he cherished! Splash! Without a microsecond of hesitation, Duran slammed his knees into the filthy, sewage-soaked muck, prostrating himself deeply before Soren.

"Lord Soren! From this day until my last breath, my life is yours!" Duran lifted his face—streaked with tears and muck—revealing an unyielding, feral battle-lust:"As long as you protect my mother, I will act as your vanguard! I will rip the throats out of those Green-skin animals with my bare hands! I pledge my eternal loyalty to Greywater Village!" Looking down at this Brawler who had finally awakened his primal bloodlust and sincerely submitted, a wave of profound satisfaction washed over Soren.

Securing the absolute loyalty of an apex close-quarters combatant meant Greywater Village's melee frontline was about to gain a hyper-lethal vanguard general!

"Stand up. Soldiers of Greywater Village do not bend the knee to anyone but the battlefield." Soren reached out, hauling Duran's massive frame out of the muck and brushing the filth from his shoulder. It was less than an hour before the Overlord's banquet was set to begin. Soren shifted entirely into his clinical, Spec-Ops commander persona, rapidly issuing extraction orders:"Duran, your identity is exposed. This entire sector is about to face door-to-door, scorched-earth sweeps."

"You are to infiltrate your home immediately via this drainage network. Remember this: Do not pack a single copper coin or piece of clothing! Strap your mother to your back and immediately exfiltrate to the underground crypts beneath the ruined temple in the western sector." Soren looked Duran dead in the eyes, delivering a deadly serious warning:"Tonight, something apocalyptic is going to happen at the Overlord's stronghold. The entire Orc garrison will be thrust into maximum alert."

"While hiding in those crypts, even if the very earth shakes or catastrophic explosions ring out, you are to maintain absolute silence and do not break cover! Once my objective is complete, I will personally extract you and your mother, and we will carve a bloody path straight out of Abysswater Keep!" Hearing the absolute, mastermind authority in Soren's voice—a man who clearly had the entire board under his control—Duran gave a heavy, resolute nod.

"Your will be done, My Lord Commander!" Watching Duran nimbly melt into the shadows of the foul aqueduct, Soren turned to Lyra. His aura was currently blazing with apex battle-lust.

"Let's go, Lyra. The pieces are in place." Soren reached into his cloak, pulling out the heavy brass invitation he had secured from Alaric, weighing it lightly in his palm.

"It's time to crash an Orc banquet dripping with hidden killing intent, and pay a visit to the Overlord of this rotting fortress." A pitch-black, suffocating night had firmly blanketed Abysswater Keep. The freezing gale sliced through the crumbling mud walls of the slums, ruthlessly stealing the residual body heat of the shivering, starving human laborers. However, in the central hall of the Overlord's stronghold, it was a stark, nauseating contrast of opulent decadence.

This cavernous hall had once been the majestic throne room of a human Grand Duke. Now, the exquisite, radiant frescoes of the God of Light on the vaulted ceilings had been violently chiseled away. In their place were grotesque, barbaric Bloodfang totems, smeared across the stone using a mix of quicklime and dried human blood. Dozens of massive brass braziers lined the plush red carpet.

Inside, they burned smokeless beast-charcoal laced with obscenely expensive exotic spices, baking the entire hall in a sweltering, decadent heat. The impossibly long oak tables groaned under the weight of luxury: sizzling, fat-dripping whole roasted sheep, honey-glazed fowl, and vintage red wines served in plundered, exquisite human silverware. The Overlord of Abysswater Keep, the Black Iron Orc named Nak, sat imperiously upon the central throne.

Unlike the mindless brutes who only knew how to swing axes in the mud, Nak's frame was massive, but years of hedonism had given him a grotesquely bloated belly. Absurdly, he was draped in a luxuriously tailored Suraya-silk robe—a garment meant exclusively for human nobility—and his thick fingers were crammed with massive, gem-encrusted rings. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Tonight was a grand assembly of the apex power brokers of Abysswater Keep.

On the left side of the hall sat over a dozen scarred, heavily muscled Orc senior officers. Entirely ignoring any semblance of etiquette, they savagely tore into bloody, half-raw monster meat with their bare hands. On the right side of the hall, a group of humans sat subserviently, fearfully perched on the edges of their seats. Among them were human collaborator captains with cruel, dead eyes. There were greasy-faced, bloated human merchants.

There were even a few degenerate, fallen aristocrats wrapped in extravagant finery—men who had once sworn sacred oaths of fealty to human kings. Overlord Nak's hideous face, dominated by jutting, filed tusks, stretched into a sickening, hypocritical smile. He raised a wide-brimmed golden goblet and, speaking in guttural, heavily accented Orcish, delivered a booming speech:"Friends! Architects of Abysswater Keep!" Nak's booming voice rattled the candlelight across the hall.

"The great Warchief Blackstone is about to launch a grand subjugation campaign! But he has decreed that war is merely the crucible required to forge a greater peace!"

"Look at yourselves! You are humans, yes, but here in Abysswater Keep, you are feasting ten thousand times better than your shivering, starving compatriots dying in the frozen mud of the north!" Nak waved his thick arm, foul saliva flying from his maw.

"The Orc Alliance promotes the 'One Family' policy!"

"As long as you obediently surrender your winter grain reserves... As long as you whip your lowly peasants into submission, ensuring they forge our iron and till our fields... As long as you deafen your ears to the delusional rhetoric of rebellion..." Nak halted his golden goblet in mid-air before slowly setting it down.

His expression shifted, revealing a predatory, venomous cunning:"I, Nak, swear upon my tusks: After our grand army flattens the Misty Swamp into dust, you will remain the wealthy masters of this city! You will share in co-prosperity with the Orcs!"

"Unmatched wisdom, Overlord Nak!"

"May the Warchief crush his enemies! May Abysswater Keep prosper for eternity!" From the right side of the hall, the human traitors erupted into a thunderous, sycophantic applause. Several grotesquely obsequious merchants even stood up, shamelessly raising their goblets to toast the very Orc officers whose hands were stained with the blood of their kin. Their faces were plastered with sickeningly subservient grins. However, amidst this cacophony of grotesque treachery...

Tucked into the absolute furthest, darkest corner of the hall sat two low-ranking soldiers clad in the mismatched leather armor of human slave auxiliaries. It was Soren and Lyra, who had seamlessly infiltrated the banquet. Possessing the [Orcish Dialect Mastery] talent, Soren processed every single syllable of Nak's hypocritical vomit. A cold, analytical sneer surfaced in his mind, instantly dissecting the Overlord's venomous psychological play."

'One Family?' Nothing but cheap, transparent brainwashing."

"Warchief Blackstone is mobilizing thirty thousand elites to annihilate Greywater Village. Thirty thousand open maws... The daily logistical burn rate required to sustain that force is astronomical."

"As the primary logistical transit hub for the frontline, Nak is hosting this banquet for one singular reason: to appease the human collaborators and merchants holding the city's internal resources. He's weaponizing them as proxy overseers to bleed the absolute bottom-tier civilians dry, extorting their very last drops of blood and grain to ensure the Orc war machine never starves." Having deduced this, Soren lost all interest in Nak's pathetic theatrical performance.

His primary objective right now was to stockpile caloric energy and maintain peak combat readiness.

"Eat," Soren muttered softly without raising his head. He reached out, ripping an entire leg off a roasted sheep and savagely tearing into the meat. High-density caloric protein and rich, dark ale were rapidly shoveled into his stomach. Sitting beside him, Lyra had even fewer scruples. The silver-haired girl with the [Throwing Knife Master] talent scooped up entire silver platters, shoveling massive chunks of roasted meat and high-sugar pastries into her mouth like a starving squirrel, her cheeks comically bulging.

The two gorged themselves with absolute pragmatic efficiency, not giving a single damn about the stares of those around them, forming a sharp, ironic contrast to the sycophants desperately trying to curry favor with the Orcs. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the hall, hidden within the shadows of a massive stone pillar. Alaric, the Commander of the Royal Griffin Knights—also clad in a brilliant disguise—was exchanging covert tactical signals with his personal guard.

Alaric's brow furrowed slightly as his gaze locked onto the slightly ajar side door directly behind Overlord Nak's throne.

"According to our deep-cover intel, the logistical ledgers and operational supply-route maps should be stored in the study right behind that side door," Alaric calculated in his mind. As an orthodox, high-ranking general of the Empire, Alaric's tactical mindset was still firmly rooted in the traditional, orthodox framework of classical espionage.