Chương 31: 31：The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday

Then came the swamp-crossing drills in the deep hinterlands. Every man had to submerge himself completely in the foul, leech-infested muck, relying entirely on hollow reed stalks to breathe as they crawled forward. And finally, formation and throwing drills.

"Formation!" In a clearing, sixty-five men stood wielding two-and-a-half-meter heavy halberds. Soren paced through the ranks, running a wooden slat along their weapons. The halberds had to be kept perfectly level.

"Thrust!" Sixty-five men stepped into the lunge in perfect unison. Their unified strike tore through the air, the heavy blades producing a sharp, metallic hum. Next was precision javelin throwing. A firing line was drawn thirty paces away from wooden stakes topped with straw dummies. Two hundred throws a day per man. By the end, their throwing arms were swollen thicker than their thighs. What began as a chaotic shower of stray projectiles transformed over half a month.

"Throw!" Swish! Sixty-five dark streaks blotted out the sky, plunging into the designated target zone so densely they resembled a miniature forest. But what truly brought the soldiers to the brink of despair was the close-quarters disarming combat taught by Soren himself. There was no chivalric etiquette or elegant swordplay here. Everything Soren taught was designed to maim—vicious, direct strikes targeting the joints, eyeballs, throat, and groin.

He taught them how to sever the wrist tendons of a spearman with a short dagger, how to kick mud into an enemy's eyes from the ground, and how to drive a wooden spike into the back of an opponent's knee.

"Survive. Stay alive, and then grind the enemy to dust in the most efficient way possible. That is discipline."

"The only easy day was yesterday." Day after day, Soren hammered the doctrines of modern special forces into the very bones of these refugees. Half a month of relentless, non-stop training. Now, those sixty-five soldiers stood in the mire. Clad in tattered goblin-leather armor, carrying three ash-black javelins across their backs and gripping heavy halberds, their eyes were deep, cold, and utterly devoid of fear. Every trace of the raw recruits, humble fishermen, and broken slaves they once were had been erased.

They had been brutally forged into the deadliest, most vicious blade in the Misty Swamp. …… Drip. Cold rainwater gathered on the thatched eaves before plunging into a puddle below, kicking up a ring of mud. It was midnight. The entirety of Graywater Village was submerged in deathly silent darkness. Fweee! An incredibly brief, sharp blast from a bone whistle tore through the night. A ripple of soft creaks echoed from wooden slat beds. There were no yawns, no rustling of men groggily rolling over.

There was only the muffled, heavy thud of leather boots hitting the muddy floor. Buckles were fastened, puttees tightly wrapped, grappling hooks slung over shoulders, and the ash-black javelins smoothly slotted into their harnesses. Wooden doors swung open. Sixty-five dark silhouettes slipped out of their respective cabins, treading lightly through the muck as they rapidly converged on the central clearing. Soren stood by the glowing brazier, clocking their response time. Forty-five seconds.

Sixty-five soldiers stood in formation, halberds at the ready. You could hear a pin drop. Not a single pair of legs trembled, not a single pair of eyelids drooped. Just a few hours ago, they had finished a grueling, special-forces-level physical burnout. After that, they had slept for less than an hour. If they were ordinary men, they wouldn't have even been able to stand straight after being abruptly woken up. Yet the sixty-five men standing here took long, steady, rhythmic breaths.

Troll Serum burned in their veins, relentlessly repairing torn muscle fibers. Their nocturnal body temperature was naturally two degrees higher than a normal human's, causing the cold rain landing on their shoulders to instantly hiss and turn into white steam. Soren reached back and gripped his Windwhisper Bow.

"Condition looks good, " he noted.

"Night infiltration. Target zone: twenty kilometers north, deep in the mist of the Orc patrol sector." Soren swept his gaze over the pairs of eyes gleaming in the dark:"The disarming, stealth, and throat-slitting techniques I've drilled into you for the past half-month—it's time to put them to the test!"

"Tonight, we take a stroll outside the green-skins' camp."

"About-face! Move out!" The sixty-five leather-clad soldiers lowered their two-and-a-half-meter armor-piercing halberds, keeping them tucked tight. Like a bale of crocodiles sliding into dark waters, they seamlessly vanished into the vast, poisonous fog. …… At that exact moment, deep within the heart of the Misty Swamp. Fifty kilometers away from Graywater Village stood the [Ironwood Fortress]. Thick fog churned furiously around the perimeter of the human encampment.

Puddles on the ground began to tremble, faint ripples spreading across the surface of the water. The source of the tremors lay deep within the fog. Heavy, uneven footsteps squelched through the swamp. The Shadow Priest, Zagar, came to a halt. He gripped a twisted bone staff, two pinpricks of eerie green phosphorescence glowing beneath his heavy hood. A massive shadow cast itself over Zagar's head. It was a Son of Titan. Standing a full three meters tall, the hulking behemoth wore no armor.

Instead, across its bare skin, a yellowish-brown layer of elemental rock constantly formed, crumbled, and regenerated—a living earthen shield. Ten of these Sons of Titan had been permanently cursed with [Bloodthirsty Frenzy]. Viscous drool dripped uncontrollably from the corners of their mouths, yet their jaws were clamped shut in an agonizing vice, refusing to let a single roar escape. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Zagar stared at the towering ironwood chevaux-de-frise and the flickering watchfires ahead. In the past, Warchief Blackstone would have scoffed at a deployment of barely a dozen warriors. Swinging a warhammer weighing dozens of pounds to lead a green tide of ten thousand Orcs to crush everything in their path—that was the true Orc tradition. Until that day. Before the gates of Storm Rift Fortress, a single arrow crossed a distance of two thousand meters.

With a shriek that tore through the sound barrier, it flawlessly pierced the Warchief's forearm. Had the Warchief not reflexively raised his armored bracer at the very last fraction of a second, the arrow would have punctured his heart. That day changed the Warchief. After a blinding rage that saw him tear down his own command tent and beat ten slaves to a bloody pulp, the Warchief finally recognized the lethal utility of a small, elite strike force.

Thus, the Warchief poured astronomical resources into forging this squad of ten Sons of Titan. Zagar's mission was simple: take these ten unfeeling, painless monsters, root out the mysterious splinter faction that had assassinated their High Shaman, and slaughter them! And the heavily fortified, battle-proven [Ironwood Fortress] standing before him was sitting right at the top of their suspect list.

"Encircle it, " Zagar commanded. The ten three-meter-tall hulks dispersed, melting into the dense brush just beyond the barricades. Thirty paces away, the braziers mounted on the fortress's wooden ramparts popped and crackled.

"Shift change! Bloody freezing weather..." A human sentry draped in chainmail stood up from the wooden watchtower, rubbing his hands together for warmth. Just as he turned his head, the corner of his eye caught an unnatural blur of gray. A gargantuan, monstrous face was hovering just beyond the wooden palisade. The sentry's pupils dilated in absolute terror. His hand darted toward the warning gong at his waist. Down in the tall grass, Zagar pointed his bone staff.

A stream of black-and-purple energy, no thicker than a finger, instantly bridged the thirty-pace gap, slicing silently through the fog. Squelch. The sentry's Adam's apple simply vanished. The dark shadow magic had instantly corroded a clean, gaping hole straight through his neck. Without so much as a gurgle, his lifeless body toppled backward. However, as the dead sentry fell, his stiffening arm flailed wildly, his elbow violently knocking over an oil lantern hung on a wooden post. Crash!

The glass shattered, sending lamp oil splashing everywhere. A raging fire instantly caught on the wooden wall. A split second later, the shrill, frantic blast of alarm whistles erupted from the fortress's three interior watchtowers. Inside the fortress's main keep. Galahad shoved aside the parchment map on his desk, grabbed his steel helm, and slammed it onto his head.

This man, once a rising star and young hardliner general within the Silvermoon Kingdom, had long grown sick of the capital's endless selfishness and rampant corruption. Long before the Crimson Moon Knights ever set foot in the Misty Swamp, he had willingly forsaken his rank in Silvermoon. Taking his loyal retinue, he had plunged directly into this treacherous wasteland.

Relying solely on his well-regimented army, he had carved out a heavily fortified bastion right in the middle of the swamp, earning the deep respect and love of the surrounding villagers. The heavy wooden doors were practically kicked open. A courier stumbled into the room, tripping over his own feet.

"My Lord! Enemy attack! The main gates have been smashed to splinters!"

"Contain yourself!" Galahad roared, drawing the ruby-inlaid broadsword from his hip."Is it the green-skins' Wolf Riders? Or their Pigmen meat-shields? Push out the barricades and prep the boiling oil!"

"Neither, sir!" The courier swallowed convulsively, his finger trembling as he pointed toward the door.

"Ten men! Only ten of them! They aren't wearing any armor, but every crossbow bolt we fire bounces right off their skin like it's made of solid rock!"

"They ripped the two main support logs off the front gate with their bare hands!" Galahad let out a cold, derisive sneer.

"Ten men? Even if ten raging Minotaurs charged my walls wielding war-totems, they couldn't flatten my Ironwood Fortress!"

"You've grown soft. At the first sign of brute strength, you lose your nerve." Galahad strode boldly out of the keep, bellowing orders down at the officers hastily assembling at the bottom of the steps.

"First, Second, and Third Heavy Infantry Battalions! Deploy the shield walls! Execute a three-pronged pincer formation. I want those ten unarmored, hairy freaks crushed into paste right at the main gates!" The Second Infantry Battalion was the first to lock into formation amid the muddy courtyard. One hundred and twenty heavily armored men. In their left hands, kite shields of tempered steel, in their right, two-meter-long spears.

"Shields up!" the Battalion Commander screamed at the top of his lungs. The mist was violently parted. A Son of Titan bulldozed through a collapsing section of the burning wooden wall, stepping directly into the firelight. It wielded no weapon. Its massive three-meter frame was fully exposed, the yellowish-brown elemental rock rippling across its body like a living shell of granite.

"Thrust!" The Commander swung his flail downward. Thirty heavy spears struck out through the gaps in the shield wall like venomous vipers. Driven by the full momentum of the men, the tempered steel spearheads slammed brutally into the chest and abdomen of the Son of Titan. CRACK-CRACK-CRACK! A terrifying symphony of explosive snaps echoed out. The exceptionally tough ash-wood spear shafts bowed into extreme arcs before uniformly shattering into a deadly rain of wooden shrapnel.

The spearheads hadn't even managed to scratch the creature's rocky hide.