Chương 319: 319：How to Stop a Centaur Charge

Faced with this suffocating, apocalyptic momentum, any conventional human infantry phalanx would have instantly shattered. However, just as the sprawling, dark tide of the Centaur army breached the eight-hundred-meter mark...

"Now! They've tightened their formation! Rip off the camouflage netting!" Hidden inside the reinforced bunker, Luger, the Hobgoblin Arsenal Master, unleashed a blood-curdling roar. Riiiiip! Massive canvas camouflage nets strung across the high ground behind the defensive line were violently yanked away, unveiling the hulking, mechanical beasts of war lurking beneath! Four torsion-powered heavy catapults and two towering, multi-meter-tall siege trebuchets finally bared their apocalyptic fangs to the world!

"Release the winches! Let these beasts taste the wrath of the heavens! FIRE!" Luger's heavily muscled arm violently slashed through the air. THWUMP! THWUMP! THWUMP! The deafening release of massive mechanical tension echoed across the battlefield. The fifteen-meter-long throwing arms of the heavy trebuchets, violently hauled by massive gravity counterweights, whipped savagely through the air! Six solid granite boulders, each weighing over two hundred pounds, were launched with terrifying kinetic force.

Carving massive, soaring parabolas through the overcast sky, they plummeted mercilessly toward the tightly packed Centaur vanguard!

"What is that sound?! What is that in the sky?!" Hearing the piercing shriek of tearing wind, the Centaur warriors at the forefront instinctively looked up. What filled their vision were massive, pitch-black shadows expanding at a hyper-velocity rate. BOOM! CRUNCH! The first siege boulder, carrying apocalyptic terminal velocity, viciously slammed directly into the densely packed center of the charging horde. This was absolutely not something that could be blocked by crude, hardened leather armor!

The exact microsecond the boulder made impact, the staggering kinetic shockwave instantaneously pulverized three gargantuan Centaur elites into unrecognizable pools of bloody paste! But the true horror had just begun. Fueled by its terrifying inertia, the two-hundred-pound boulder violently ricocheted and rolled through the freezing mud! It acted as a ruthless meat grinder, brutally plowing a bloody trench over ten meters long straight through the densely packed ranks!

Any Centaur caught in its path—whether sustaining a direct hit or a mere glancing blow—had their bones instantly shattered. Massive equine legs were violently snapped, while severed limbs and steaming entrails were sent spraying wildly into the freezing air!

"AGHHH! MY LEGS!"

"HELP! DODGE IT!" Blood-curdling screams instantly drowned out the thunderous roar of the hooves. Although Luger had strictly adhered to Soren's orders, withholding the incredibly precious alchemical fire-oil to preserve their final trump card, the sheer, raw kinetic devastation of the boulder bombardment was more than enough! The previously airtight, highly condensed charging wedge was instantly thrown into absolute chaos!

Desperately attempting to evade the plummeting meteorites, the Centaurs instinctively scattered toward the flanks. The massive horde collided with itself, triggering a horrific, cascading chain reaction of crowding and brutal trampling!

"Do not break formation! Do not stop! Keep charging!" Riding at the very front, Vice-Chieftain Luke wildly swung his heavy saber, screaming at the top of his lungs in a desperate bid to stabilize the routing ranks. A profound dread gripped his heart. He horrifyingly realized the sheer depth of Greywater Village's firepower. Not only did they possess repeating heavy crossbows and an anti-air matrix, but they had actually managed to conceal a full-scale heavy artillery battery!

Meanwhile, in the main staging ground two kilometers to the rear. Witnessing his vanguard elites being pulverized into bloody slurry by falling boulders, Chieftain Heka's eyes burned crimson. His innately tyrannical, bloodthirsty nature completely overpowered any semblance of tactical reason. Without a microsecond of hesitation, he personally led a heavily armed execution squad, galloping frantically toward the front.

With a savage roar, he violently swung his massive spiked flail, ruthlessly caving in the skull of a terrified Centaur attempting to flee the bombardment! The horrific sight of bursting brains and splattering gore instantly shocked every single wavering warrior to their core.

"Anyone who dares to take a single half-step backward will share his fate!" Heka was completely consumed by madness. Pointing his blood-drenched weapon toward the human defensive line, he roared:"Human siege engines reload at a pathetic crawl! They do not have the time to launch a second volley! As long as we breach the bombardment zone and cross the five-hundred-meter mark, the battle is ours! Endure the rocks! Keep charging!"

Under Heka's ruthless, uncompromising threat of execution, the heavily battered Centaur elites had absolutely no avenue of retreat. Gritting their teeth so hard they bled, they trampled over the still-warm, mangled corpses of their own kin. Forced to brave the threat of plummeting boulders, they resumed their hyper-violent charge! RUMBLE! RUMBLE! RUMBLE! Relying on their race's unparalleled speed and mobility, Luke led the surviving two-thousand-plus elites forward.

After paying the agonizing toll of over a hundred lives in the artillery zone, they finally managed to violently punch through the trebuchets' primary kill box.

"We're close! Just a little more!" A savage glimmer of hope finally broke through the layer of mud and grime on Luke's face. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. He saw it! Through the swirling snow, he clearly saw the rows of wooden chevaux-de-frise, and the gleaming helmets of the human infantry cowering behind the trenches!

Once they breached the five-hundred-meter threshold, the apocalyptic kinetic momentum of two thousand galloping Centaurs would effortlessly steamroll that ramshackle defensive line into dust! However, these arrogant Centaur elites were completely oblivious to one fatal truth. At this exact moment, they were galloping headfirst into the jaws of a meticulously crafted death trap, personally opened for them by Soren.

Directly in front of the primary defensive line lay a wide, deceptively flat slope dotted with withered reeds. On the surface, covered by a thin layer of drifting snow, it looked absolutely indistinguishable from the surrounding muddy wasteland. At the absolute vanguard of the charge, a towering Centaur Centurion—weighing nearly eight hundred pounds—drove his hooves violently into the slope, maximizing his charging velocity. CRACK.

A sound, faint yet impossibly crisp amidst the howling winter wind, quietly echoed from beneath the snow. It was the sound of a reinforced wooden load-bearing strut snapping. Trap Captain Gary, employing flawless structural calculations, had engineered these trapdoors with a highly specific weight threshold—designed explicitly to trigger only under the immense, concentrated mass of a galloping Centaur! The very next microsecond, disaster struck!

The Centurion suddenly felt the solid earth beneath his hooves completely vanish. A violent, terrifying sensation of weightlessness consumed him.

"Wh—!" He didn't even have the time to scream a single syllable. His entire gargantuan frame plummeted straight into the earth! And that first break triggered a catastrophic, apocalyptic chain reaction! RUMBLE! CRASH! Amidst a deafening, horrifying cascade of shattering timber and collapsing earth, the entire gentle slope—a continuous, seamlessly camouflaged expanse spanning a full five hundred meters wide—completely caved in!

An impossibly massive, interconnected network of deep trenches brutally unveiled its true, hideous visage to the completely defenseless Centaur vanguard!

"NO! HALT! PULL BACK!" At the absolute precipice of death, Vice-Chieftain Luke's deeply ingrained paranoia and peerless equestrian mastery saved his life. He violently hauled back on his reins with every ounce of his strength! His mount reared up screaming, its front hooves actually dangling over the sheer drop of the abyss before he barely managed to kill his momentum.

But the thousands of Centaur elites galloping directly behind him—who had been forced by Heka to push their speed to the absolute limit—couldn't possibly hit the brakes in time! Driven by the sheer, gargantuan mass of their army and the unstoppable kinetic inertia of a full charge, the warriors in the front ranks dug their hooves into the mud, desperately trying to halt. But they were instantly, violently rear-ended by their own kin!

"GET BACK! DON'T PUSH!" CRASH! THUD! CRASH! Accompanied by the sickening sounds of mass collisions, hundreds of hyper-elite Centaur warriors, their faces contorted in pure terror, were brutally shoved, crushed, and squeezed forward. Like a chaotic avalanche of flesh and armor, they tumbled head over hooves down into the gaping maw of the massive trenches! And waiting for them at the bottom of the pit was the ultimate masterpiece crafted by Trap Captain Gary and his engineering corps.

It was a densely packed forest of sharpened wooden stakes, pointing relentlessly toward the sky, every single tip heavily slathered in the lethal, hyper-toxic venom of [Swamp Poison Frogs]! SQUELCH! SQUELCH! SQUELCH! Their massive, multi-ton bodies, fueled by the accelerating force of gravity, plummeted violently onto the bed of lethal spikes! The horrific, sickening sound of flesh being brutally perforated echoed relentlessly from the depths of the trenches.

The razor-sharp stakes mercilessly punched straight through the Centaurs' completely unprotected equine bellies and human chests. But what was truly fatal was the aftermath. In their desperate, agonizing panic to stand up and escape the narrow, spike-filled confines, the Centaurs' four long, powerful legs—the very appendages they prided themselves on above all else—became an apocalyptic liability. The moment they forcefully kicked off the ground, their limbs became wedged between the thick stakes.

With a sickening SNAP, their legs were violently broken, emitting a harrowing chorus of shattering bone!

"AGHHH! SAVE ME!"

"MY LEGS! THEY'RE BROKEN!"

"POISON... THE SPIKES ARE LACED WITH POISON!" As the highly lethal venom rapidly entered their bloodstreams, the crimson blood pouring from the Centaurs' wounds rapidly oxidized into a horrifying, sickly purple-black hue. Their gargantuan bodies began to convulse with violent, uncontrollable muscle spasms. Foaming at the mouth and completely paralyzed by the neurotoxin, they writhed at the bottom of the pit, unleashing the most harrowing, blood-curdling wails the battlefield had ever heard!

This agonizing chorus of death, riding the freezing winds alongside the suffocating, pungent stench of blood, swept over the battlefield. It delivered an absolutely devastating psychological blow to the Centaur warriors who hadn't yet fallen into the abyss. They skidded to a halt at the precipice of the pit, staring down in abject terror. Seeing their elite brethren skewered like meat on a spit and dying in unimaginable agony, their massive bodies began to tremble violently.

Their morale completely shattered; many of them didn't even have the strength left to grip their weapons. Yet, for the Centaur race, the absolute nightmare of Greywater Village... had only just begun.