Chương 295: 295：Scientific Sorcery and Mass-Produced Destruction

"Exactly." Soren locked eyes with Horace.

"For the past half-month, Victor has been trying to reverse-engineer the underlying rune sequences. The goal is to convert this into a magic array that we can deploy on a massive scale." Soren pointed to the massive piles of calculation drafts spilling off the nearby desks.

"Victor, explain your dilemma to him." Victor sighed, scratching his disheveled hair, his expression revealing the inherent helplessness of a spellcaster facing a wall.

"I've successfully stripped away the outer trigger-fuse runes. However, the core of the Forbidden spell is a dual-layered, three-dimensional magic array containing both spatial distortion and high-energy combustion." Using his mana, Victor constructed a fragmented, glowing red 3D model in mid-air.

"Every time I try to probe the one hundred and eight primary core nodes with my mana, the mana inside my own body suffers severe gravitational pull and violent backlash." He shook his head in frustration.

"I'm forced to rely entirely on a mage's intuition to blindly guess the underlying logic. It's an incredibly dangerous, blind trial-and-error process! I've been stuck on the sixth node for three whole days!" Hearing Victor's highly technical description, Horace's demeanor instantly changed. It was the look of a man who had just found his life's ultimate calling. It was the staggering, explosive confidence of a scholar standing squarely within his own domain of expertise!

He completely forgot his earlier inferiority complex. He forgot that they were in the middle of a perilous, war-torn swamp. Horace snatched the parchment detailing Victor's node data, his eyes locked onto the glowing red mana model floating in the air. Less than two minutes passed.

"Wrong! Lord Victor, your foundational logic is completely wrong!" Horace unceremoniously pointed out the Silver-tier Mage's error. He spoke rapidly, his brain processing the information at lightning speed.

"You are analyzing the flow of mana from the perspective of a spellcaster! But the true essence of Forbidden magic isn't flow—it's the total collapse and restructuring of energy!" Horace grabbed a piece of charcoal and rapidly sketched out several complex geometric tangents and ancient rune variants right onto the workbench.

"Look here! The connection between the sixth and seventh nodes isn't a mana conduit at all—it's an energy isolation valve! In its dormant state, it blocks mana, but upon detonation, it instantly generates extreme high pressure! You used your mana to probe a pressurized isolation valve—no wonder you suffered a backlash!" He tapped the charcoal emphatically against the table.

"If you invert the sequence of these three runes and substitute them using the microscopic energy formulas of Ancient Elven..." Initially, Victor looked slightly offended at being lectured by a magicless youth. But as Horace continued his explanation, the Silver-tier Mage's eyes grew wider and wider. His jaw went slack, and his breathing grew heavy. The moment Horace wrote down the final deductive formula... Victor literally jumped out of his chair in excitement.

"By the Gods! Genius! This is a genius method of deconstruction!" Victor grabbed Horace by the shoulders, gripping him so tightly that the frail scholar winced.

"Your calculations perfectly bypassed the logical blind spots of the mana vortex! In theory, this makes absolute sense! It's completely viable!" Victor whipped his head around to stare at Soren.

"My Lord, where did you find this monster?! His understanding of the underlying laws of magic is far more profound than Archmages who have lived for three hundred years!" Horace stood frozen in place, staring blankly at the look of pure adoration on the Silver-tier Mage's face. He looked down at his own trembling hands, then at the scroll radiating an aura of apocalyptic destruction on the table. Tears spilled from the young scholar's eyes.

"It's viable... my theories are viable..." Horace muttered, laughing and crying at the same time. He finally understood that his decades of grueling study had not been in vain. Inside his physically weak, mana-barren body, he carried peerless knowledge—knowledge potent enough to alter the course of an entire war!

"Now," Soren asked quietly, his voice cutting through the emotional moment, "do you still want to pick up a sword, Horace?" Horace whipped around and offered Soren a profound, deeply solemn bow.

"Lord Soren, I understand now. This is my battlefield!" Horace declared, his eyes burning with an unprecedented fighting spirit.

"Excellent." Soren nodded in satisfaction. Exhibiting the supreme boldness of a true sovereign, he decisively issued orders for total logistical backing.

"From this day forward, Horace, you are officially appointed as the Chief Scholar of Greywater Village. You answer directly to me!"

"Victor, as my Chief Mage, you will fully cooperate with Horace's research. He will provide the theories and the blueprints; you will handle the mana infusion and physical inscription experiments!" Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. With a wave of his hand, Soren tossed out an astonishing commitment of resources.

"Manpower, materials—you have the highest priority clearance in the entire territory!"

"You need precision carving knives? I'll have Luger forge you the finest inscription pens using the geothermal furnace!"

"You need rare materials? I am authorizing an exclusive research grant of two thousand pure gold coins. Fina will procure whatever you need through the Lone Cliff channels, no matter the cost!" Soren gazed off into the distance, looking toward the direction of Bloodfang Fortress.

"You are to have no other concerns. Start with theoretical research and miniaturized explosive testing. Advance step by step on solid ground."

"I want you to turn this [Meteor Shower] into a spell that we can control—and that we can mass-produce!"

"When that army of thirty thousand orcs steps foot into Greywater Village, I want them to taste the apocalyptic wrath forged by human intellect!" Meanwhile, far to the north. The northern winds of the Misty Swamp were blisteringly cold, howling relentlessly against the Crimson Moon Knights' main encampment, situated on the northwestern highlands of the Deadbone Woods. Between two towering, venomous camphor trees, the wooden barricades and chevaux-de-frise had been heavily reinforced overnight.

Ever since the news arrived that the main orc forces were marching south, the camp's atmosphere had grown exceedingly tense beneath a calm exterior. Every single knight now slept in their armor.

"Halt! Identify yourself!" Outside the camp gates, a ranger atop a watchtower abruptly drew his longbow to the full, aiming his arrow at a figure stumbling through the blizzard.

"It's... it's me..." The figure collapsed to his knees in the freezing mud with a heavy thud. With great difficulty, he pulled back his tattered hood, revealing a face caked in blood and frostbite. The sentry erupted in a joyous shout.

"It's Zim! Old Zim is alive! Quick! Open the gates! Call for the combat medic!" The heavy log gates were hastily pulled open. Several knights practically tumbled out into the blizzard, scrambling to support the old ranger who had been missing for days—the man everyone assumed had died deep in the swamp. Inside the warm medical tent, the firewood crackled pleasantly in the hearth.

Combat Medic Elena's hands radiated the soft, soothing Holy Light of the Bright Moon as she carefully hovered them over Zim's left arm, which was wrapped in thick, blood-soaked bandages. Leona, the Commander of the Crimson Moon Knights—a rugged, fiercely beautiful woman with dazzling red hair—stood beside the cot with one hand resting on her hip. Her crimson eyes, usually so imposing and stern, were now filled with deep concern and the joy of a miraculous reunion.

"You tough old bastard. How are you still alive?!" Seeing the color gradually return to Zim's face under the healing light, Leona couldn't help but step forward and playfully punch his right shoulder.

"Commander..." Zim opened his eyes weakly. His cracked lips trembled, and the rims of his eyes grew red.

"Don't rush to speak. Drink some hot soup first," Elena said softly. She picked up a bowl of steaming broth from a nearby table and carefully fed it to Zim with a wooden spoon.

"What exactly happened out there? There were seven men in your squad. Only your warhorse was found by a toxic mire. We all thought you were..." Zim swallowed the broth, his Adam's apple bobbing violently. He lowered his eyelids slightly, avoiding Leona's direct, fiercely trusting gaze. Instead, the sinister, venomous face of Shadow Priest Zagar flashed through his mind, along with the agonizing torture of the [Shadow Flaying].

Deep within his heart, the Shadow Seed that had been forcibly implanted within him seemed to sense his fear. It pulsed with a faint, hidden sting—a cruel warning that he must obey.

"Three days ago..." Zim began, his voice raspy. Trembling with the residual terror of a man who had barely escaped death, he slowly recited the meticulous lie Zagar had crafted for him.

"We were scouting the perimeter when we were suddenly surrounded by orc wolf riders. To cover the retreat of a few new recruits, I volunteered to stay behind and hold them off. My horse got stuck in the mud, and they hunted me down..." Zim tightly gripped the fur blanket beneath him, acting as if he were truly reliving the nightmare.

"My left arm was hit by a poisoned arrow. I had no choice but to hide near the edge of a highly acidic mud pit. The stench drove those beasts away; they assumed I was dead. Eventually, I passed out... A group of refugees fleeing from Abysswater Keep found me and saved me." He looked up, his face painted with a masterful mask of profound gratitude.

"They gave me their last half-ration of hardtack and used swamp herbs to patch up my wounds. I rested in their dugout for two days until I finally gathered enough strength to sneak back to camp under the cover of night."