Chương 316: 316：Raining Dragon Blood

Ein's eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. Without turning, he flashed a covert hand signal to the rear.

"Squad Three! Single out ten recruits with the weakest draw weight. Equip them with the absolute worst, rustiest iron-tipped arrows we have!" Ein barked, issuing a highly deceptive military directive.

"Do not aim! Just fire blindly into the sky! Remember, I want you to look like you're completely paralyzed by fear! Thrash around! Panic!"

"Understood!" The selected second-line archers immediately executed the ruse. Hands visibly trembling, they awkwardly drew their bows and released a pathetic, utterly disorganized volley of iron-tipped arrows into the blizzard. Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! The moment the arrows breached the two-hundred-meter mark, they entirely exhausted their kinetic force. Caught in the freezing crosswinds, they fluttered wildly off course like dead leaves.

They didn't even brush against the Wyverns' scales before plummeting powerlessly back into the rotting mire. Witnessing this pathetic display, the Orc Wyvern Riders hovering high above erupted into a chorus of raucous, mocking laughter.

"Hahahaha! Look at those pathetic human weaklings! They've already completely lost their minds to fear!" The scar-faced Orc Wyvern Rider Captain threw his head back, laughing arrogantly from atop his beast. Seeing those feeble, limp arrows, whatever microscopic sliver of caution remained in his heart vanished entirely.

"Warchief Blackstone claimed this village was a nightmare! If you ask me, they don't possess a single piece of heavy anti-air artillery! Those garbage bows couldn't even pierce a Wyvern's hide!" He violently yanked his reins, his face twisting into a mask of bloodthirsty cruelty.

"Boys! Drop altitude! Push down to one hundred and fifty meters! Enter the bombing zone! Smash these humans' brains out with the boulders!" SKREEE! The dozen-odd Wyverns unleashed roars of rabid excitement. Tucking their grotesque fleshy wings, their massive bodies—each clutching a gargantuan, heavy siege boulder beneath their bellies—tore through the cloud cover. Abandoning all caution, they initiated a hyper-velocity, low-altitude dive directly toward Greywater Village's anti-air positions! Two hundred meters...

one hundred and eighty meters... one hundred and fifty meters! The exact microsecond this flock of gargantuan predators, trailing a terrifying, compressive wind pressure, breached the critical one-hundred-and-fifty-meter kill zone... Down in the trenches, a bone-chilling, apocalyptic killing intent erupted simultaneously in the eyes of Ein and Ilya.

"Tear off the camouflage netting!" Ein roared. Riiip! Six massive [Siege Ballistas] were instantly unveiled! Their broad, dark-metallic chassis gleamed ominously as their terrifying offensive mechanisms were fully exposed to the elements. The heavy gears on their base plates ground furiously as they rapidly tracked their targets.

"Kekeke! Let these greenskins taste the wrath of the goblins!" The goblin engineering crews operated in teams of three. One gripped the heavy directional lever, violently cranking the elevation angle to maximum, while the other two hoisted massive wooden mallets and smashed them down upon the firing triggers with every ounce of their strength!

"All batteries, FIRE!" Ilya commanded, simultaneously releasing her taut bowstring. VWUUUM! An ear-splitting, earth-shaking vibration tore through the battlefield! In that singular moment, Greywater Village's meticulously orchestrated, three-dimensional anti-air matrix unleashed its apocalyptic destructive power! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The six [Siege Ballistas] fired first!

Six armor-piercing, spear-sized heavy bolts, accompanied by the piercing shriek of sonic booms, carved perfectly straight, hyper-velocity trajectories directly into the sky! Immediately following, the one hundred and thirty Magic Rangers under Ilya's command released their bowstrings in perfect unison.

Over a hundred [Wind-Blade Enchanted Arrows], trailing faint cyan streams of wind mana, blossomed into a densely packed, rotating net of wind magic mid-air, flawlessly locking down the enemy's left and right aerial evasion routes! Directly below, the one hundred longbowmen led by Ein had all hot-swapped to the specialized [Tri-Edged Armor-Piercing Broadheads] personally designed by Soren. These customized arrows possessed terrifying, spiraling penetrative force.

Guided by Ein's command, they formed an airtight wall of steel that shot straight up toward the Wyverns' unarmored bellies!

"NO! It's a trap! Pull up! PULL UP!" Seeing the terrifying, apocalyptic barrage erupting from the ground below, the scar-faced Wyvern Rider Captain shrieked, his voice cracking in absolute, unadulterated terror. But at a dangerously low altitude of one hundred and fifty meters, facing a multi-layered, omnidirectional matrix of heavy firepower, their vaunted flight speed couldn't save them! SQUELCH! A scene of absolute, visceral carnage unfolded in the sky.

The vanguard Wyvern hadn't even had the time to release the siege boulder clutched to its belly before a heavy ballista bolt slammed squarely into its chest! The staggering kinetic force effortlessly punched straight through the Wyvern's rock-hard scales, violently skewering the beast and the Orc Rider on its back in a single, bloody line! Retaining its terrifying momentum, the massive bolt exploded out through the Wyvern's spine, dragging a massive shower of pulverized organs and gore into the air!

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"SKREEE!" On the flank, Ilya's [Wind-Blade Enchanted Arrows] proved incredibly lethal. A Wyvern attempting to execute a sharp evasive bank to the right plunged headfirst directly into the magical wind net. Schlick-schlick-schlick! Amidst a scalp-numbing chorus of slicing flesh, the Wyvern's proud, expansive fleshy wings were instantly shredded into bloody ribbons by the high-velocity, magically-enhanced arrows!

Stripped of all lift, the gargantuan beast let out a harrowing wail as it entered a violent tailspin, plummeting headfirst from over a hundred meters high to crash heavily into the distant mire. Directly below, Ein's longbow battalion refused to give the enemy a single microsecond to breathe. Leveraging sinister, high-angle trajectories, a densely packed swarm of [Tri-Edged Armor-Piercing Broadheads] viciously embedded themselves into the exposed belly of a Wyvern desperately attempting to pull up.

Lacking the protection of thick scales on its underside, the specialized blood-letting grooves of the tri-edged arrowheads instantly ripped the beast's stomach wide open. Scalding intestines, accompanied by a waterfall of dark green blood, poured violently from the sky. In just the very first exchange, three low-flying Wyverns were instantly shot out of the sky! Their gargantuan corpses smashed heavily into the rotting mud directly in front of the defensive line, emitting deafening, earth-shaking booms.

This devastating, overlapping crossfire matrix completely shattered the Orc air force's attack rhythm. The previously arrogant Wyvern Riders were instantly plunged into an abyss of panic. Their tight formation dissolved into absolute chaos, frantically scattering in all directions as they desperately attempted to evade the anti-air flak.

"Hold the line! Maintain formation!" Watching his comrades die such horrific deaths, the scar-faced Captain's eyes burned crimson with a toxic mix of fury and terror. He knew all too well that if he tucked his tail and fled after losing three Wyverns, Warchief Blackstone would execute him the moment he returned! Braving the violent crosswinds, he glared down at the high ground where those six lethal [Siege Ballistas] were mounted.

In all past military doctrines, as long as the heavy anti-air artillery was uprooted, human infantry were nothing but defenseless livestock.

"Ignore the archers! Take out the ballista battery! Smash it with our bodies if you have to! Clear the path for the main army!" Driven into an absolute corner, the scar-faced Captain unleashed a harrowing, desperate roar. He made a completely suicidal decision. Reversing his grip on his heavy lance, he violently drove the blade straight into the thick neck of his own gargantuan Wyvern! The excruciating pain completely ignited the primal, bloodthirsty savagery deeply ingrained in the beast's DNA.

Boasting a wingspan approaching fifteen meters, the gargantuan Wyvern completely abandoned all defensive and evasive maneuvers. Unleashing an ear-piercing shriek that echoed across the heavens, it violently tucked its wings. Transforming its own colossal body into a hyper-kinetic meteor, it initiated a completely suicidal, point-blank dive—aiming straight for the core ballista battery where Ein stood!

"It's coming straight for us! It's going to kill us all!" Down in the trenches, the goblin engineers responsible for reloading the ballistas stared at the terrifyingly expanding silhouette of the Wyvern, their bodies violently trembling in pure terror. The immense compressive wind pressure generated by the diving behemoth whipped the snow in front of the trenches into a blinding frenzy.

Its impossibly thick, razor-sharp talons were fully extended, their monstrous shadow completely engulfing the thirty-square-meter artillery position. If that massive body made impact, not only would the priceless [Siege Ballista] be reduced to splinters, but every single soul in that trench would be physically pulverized into bloody paste!

"Get out of the way! Take cover!" the surrounding longbowmen screamed in sheer panic. Yet, at this absolute, life-or-death juncture, Longbow Captain Ein's boots remained firmly rooted to the freezing mud. He did not flinch. He did not take a single half-step backward!

"Run? To expose your back to the prey is the ultimate disgrace for a hunter!" Thick veins violently bulged across Ein's usually stoic, icy features. He abruptly raised his Imperial Military Longbow. The draw weight of this weapon was staggering, but in this critical crucible of survival, Ein squeezed every last microscopic ounce of explosive power from his muscles. Biting down so hard his gums began to bleed, he forcefully hauled the heavy bowstring back to a perfect, absolute full draw!

"Talent: [Natural Hunter]!"

"Talent: [Cold Composure]!" In that microsecond, Ein's eyes seemed to shed all human emotion, narrowing to absolute, robotic slits. Stacked with the terrifying 35% accuracy buff from his innate talents, and fueled by a hyper-active adrenaline rush that massively accelerated his reaction time, the world around him completely warped. The howling wind, the terrified screams of his men, and even the hyper-velocity blur of the diving Wyvern... everything slowed to an absolute crawl.

In his vision, the entire battlefield melted away. All that remained were a few faintly glowing, lethal vulnerability nodes mapped precisely across the incoming behemoth's gargantuan body!