Chương 30: 30：Troll Blood

At the bottom of the thirty-pace-wide valley, the soldiers had finished pulling all the pinned short spears from the ground. Kyle stepped forward, a fanatic zeal lacing his voice.

"My lord, the battlefield has been cleared."

"Thirty goblins and fifteen fully-armored orcs, all dead. We stripped their black-iron armor and strapped their battleaxes to the carts."

"On our end, thanks to your targeted assassination of the enemy leader and our suppressive spear volleys..." Kyle swallowed hard."Zero casualties. Not a single man was even grazed by an orc's blade." Wiping out a regular orc force in an ambush without a single scratch—if this had been an infantry battalion of the Silvermoon Kingdom, such a record would have utterly stunned the merit-recording clerks. Yet, this ragtag band of slave auxiliaries, men who had just crawled out of the muck, had actually pulled it off.

"Move the carts. We return to camp, " Soren replied calmly. Nightfall, Greywater Village. The charcoal braziers in the central clearing burned fiercely, driving back the highly toxic miasma that plagued the area year-round. Sixty-three soldiers, plus the new recruits Gary and Meyer, made for a total of sixty-five men. They stood with straight backs, formed up into three neat ranks. Soren descended the steps of the wooden cabin. Behind him, two soldiers carried a heavy, dark-wood chest.

This was a cover—Soren had discreetly extracted the serum from the System and boxed it up away from prying eyes. The chest was opened. Dancing firelight revealed rows of thick glass vials, neatly packed inside. Inside the vials, a viscous liquid—a swirling mix of murky green and bloody crimson streaks—was faintly bubbling. Even through the cork stoppers, one could detect the heavy, metallic stench of rust and blood.

"Torn, distribute them. One vial per man." The vials were passed into the hands of every soldier. As Meyer gripped his glass vial, he felt an inexplicable, searing heat against his fingertips.

"Uncork them." Pop, pop, pop. Sixty-five corks were simultaneously pulled from their vials.

"Drink. Do not leave a single drop." It was certainly no sweet berry wine. Yet, with perfect synchronicity, all sixty-five men threw their heads back and downed the viscous sludge, letting it slide straight down their throats. The violent reaction began three seconds later. Thump. Thump. Sixty-five hearts simultaneously erupted with the deafening roar of heavy war drums.

"Argh!" Gary, standing in the first rank, was the first to drop his empty vial. His hands desperately clawed at his throat as his knees buckled, sending him crashing to the dirt. A domino effect followed as men collapsed into the mud by the dozens. Cold sweat poured down their faces. Beneath their skin, it looked as though countless living creatures were violently squirming and tearing through their flesh. The gruesome crack and pop of elongating bones echoed across the otherwise dead-silent village square.

Kyle gritted his teeth, tearing at his own chest. The hidden ailments and severe edema accumulated from thirty years of living in the swamps—as well as the chunk of flesh gouged out by an orc's short-halberd just days ago—were rapidly knitting together. The wounds closed, scabbed over, and peeled away at a visible rate. The most violent reaction belonged to Meyer. He curled into a fetal position, his stomach convulsing as he violently retched. Blargh! Meyer vomited a massive clump of blackened, coagulated blood.

The moment the black blood left his system, his chest—previously incapable of taking deep breaths due to a terminal illness—was suddenly filled with the painful, tearing sensation of expanding alveoli. A second later, fresh, freezing air rushed into his lungs. He lay on his stomach, gasping greedily for air, feeling an unprecedented surge of vitality. The root of his terminal illness had been utterly devoured and purged by the Troll Blood. This was an effect that far surpassed any [Basic Health Recovery Potion].

Ten minutes later, the convulsions ceased. Thick, white steam radiated from their sweat-drenched bodies, rising into the cool air. One by one, the sixty-five men pulled themselves up from the mud. The previously emaciated refugees now sported rugged, hardened muscle definition across their chests and abdomens. Their breathing was deep and rhythmic, and their limbs brimmed with explosive power—the kind that felt like they could crush rocks barehanded.

By the light of the campfire, Soren activated his [Personnel Appraisal]. He walked down the steps, his gaze sweeping over the sixty-five men in formation. The System interface flickered to life. Ein. Gripping his bow, his hands were steady as bedrock. The Troll Blood had not only bolstered his physical strength but also enhanced his talents on the System panel. His [Natural Hunter] accuracy modifier had increased to 35%. He will be the prospective Captain of the Archers. Gary.

The moment he had picked himself up from the dirt, his very first instinct was to test the soft mud beneath his boots, seeking stable footing and leverage. A prospective Captain of the Scouts. Meyer. His sharp, darting eyes took in his surroundings. Beneath a facade of normalcy lay a mind of cold, calculated logic. Prospective Vice-Captain of the Scouts and Chief Intelligence Gatherer. Soren's gaze then shifted to Kyle, who was currently rolling his shoulders to test his new strength.

[Brute Strength (Physical power exceeding the ordinary)], [Herbology Mastery (Bonus to herb identification)]. It was an incredibly contradictory, yet highly practical combination of traits. A powerhouse capable of wrestling demonic crocodiles barehanded, yet meticulous enough to pick out fever-curing stems from a patch of highly toxic brambles. As they marched northward in future conquests, casualties would be inevitable, making medical logistics paramount. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road.

If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. The prospective Captain of Logistics and Supply. As for Torn and the other soldiers, they possessed no notable talents. Naturally, Soren kept these evaluations strictly to himself. With a meager force of just over sixty infantrymen, officially handing out military commissions right now would be a bloated, ridiculous farce. These men would simply serve as the skeletal framework of his future army.

Once he cast a wider net for recruitment and expanded their ranks, he would officially establish the officer corps.

"To the armory, " Soren ordered, turning around. Laid out in front of the makeshift storehouse was the loot they had seized at Reed Bay a few days prior: one hundred armor-piercing heavy halberds, each two and a half meters long. During training a few days ago, Soren had attempted to arm them with these weapons. At the time, a single swing was enough to throw the soldiers off balance in the mud, turning them into sitting ducks. The halberds had been shelved. But things were different now.

"Torn, " Soren called out. Torn—the smallest man in the unit, who used to tremble just holding a standard one-handed sword—stepped forward.

"Pick up a halberd." Torn gripped the wrist-thick wooden shaft with both hands. His muscles coiled. Whoosh! The two-and-a-half-meter heavy halberd was hefted into the air with terrifying ease. The weight was still there, but it was no longer a burden. Without so much as shifting his footing, Torn executed a flawless horizontal sweep. The razor-sharp crescent blade cleaved through the air, emitting a bone-chilling shriek. The eyes of the other soldiers instantly lit up.

"Starting today, we overhaul our arsenal."

"The short-spear phalanx lacks both armor-penetration and reach. They are officially relegated to the marching quivers on your backs." Soren drew his longsword and pointed it at the pile of polearms.

"Every man takes a two-and-a-half-meter heavy halberd! We will fight in a tight infantry phalanx. Using your reach advantage, I want you to spill the guts of those orcs before they can even get within thirty centimeters of you!"

"As for the iron-wood short spears that used to be your primary weapons..." Soren looked at Ein."Every man will carry three on his back. They are now your mid-to-short range throwing javelins."

"Sixty-five men. Three volleys equal one hundred and ninety-five steel-tipped javelins! As long as you throw them within thirty paces, they'll punch right through black-iron armor!" Heavy halberds to hold the frontline and skewer enemies, backed by a saturated, close-range bombardment of three volleys, totaling one hundred and ninety-five javelins. This brutally efficient, overwhelming loadout fundamentally elevated the combat capabilities of the infantry squad.

While their offensive weaponry was sorted, their defensive gear remained a glaring issue. Soren glanced toward the sulfur pools to the west. Piled up over there were over a hundred sets of full-plate black-steel armor. The problem was that orc armor was far too thick and forged for massive frames. Even with the Troll Serum, the human skeletal structure had its limits. Trying to wear the orcs' black-iron or black-steel plate was like wearing an iron barrel, the soldiers wouldn't even be able to bend their elbows.

The camp's fires didn't burn hot enough to smelt the black steel down. And even if they could melt it, they didn't have a blacksmith capable of forging human-sized armor anyway. Their only option had been to dismantle the leather armor scavenged from the goblins, boil it to remove the stench, and stitch it back together with hemp rope to create crude leather vests. Against stray arrows or thorny brambles, this makeshift leather was adequate.

But on an open battlefield against elite Blackstone Orcs wielding thirty-pound warhammers or heavy battleaxes? The leather might as well be wet paper. The sheer blunt force would instantly shatter their bones. If they couldn't afford to take a hit, they would just have to perfect the art of evasion and one-hit kills. The first rule of special operations: the best defense is an overwhelmingly oppressive offense.

Now that the Troll Serum had fundamentally rebuilt their physiques, they could endure extreme physical conditioning. Soren was going to break this small squad down and forge them into true elite operatives. The next day at dawn, the heavy fog had yet to lift.

"Load your packs with twenty kilograms of gravel! Start from the marked mangroves at the edge of the camp and run three laps around the miasma swamp! Every man will carry three javelins on his back and his heavy halberd in hand! Ten kilometers, cross-country!" Soren wore no armor, only a thin linen shirt, standing tall in the biting, freezing rain.

"The last five men to cross the finish line get no bread or dried meat today! You'll be eating tree bark!" Splash! Splash! Sixty-five soldiers sprinted madly through the thick mud. Their thigh tendons felt close to snapping, but the inhuman vitality granted by the Troll Serum constantly knit their tearing muscle fibers back together in a brutal, agonizing war of attrition. On the first day, not a single man finished. They all collapsed, paralyzed by exhaustion, at the edge of the swamp.

On the second day, eight men managed to cross the finish line. Seven days later, sixty-five men ran through the toxic fog in a perfectly silent column, their boots stomping through knee-deep sludge. As they marched, not a single whisper was exchanged. The only sound was the terrifyingly rhythmic, synchronized breathing of the unit. And yet, this was only the warm-up.