Chương 332: 332： The Ironblood Warlord's Venom

Warchief Blackstone's head snapped up, his face painted with unadulterated self-doubt.

"That bastard Soren... just how many tricks is he still hiding? If I throw my remaining twenty thousand lumbering Tauren and Pigman infantry into that meat grinder, and they get bogged down in the mud... what kind of apocalyptic strike will that invite?" The Great Warchief swallowed hard. For the very first time since this campaign began, he uttered a word he wouldn't have even dared to think of prior to the war:"Should we... retreat? Fall back to Bloodfang Fortress while my main force remains intact?

At least that way, I can preserve the core strength of my grand army!" The absolute second those words left his mouth, the numerous Warlords within the command pavilion collectively lowered their heads. Retreat? To the Orcs—a race that worshipped nothing but hyper-aggressive offense—that word was the ultimate, unforgivable disgrace. Yet, staring down the barrel of mass starvation and Greywater Village's incomprehensible, zero-casualty kill-to-death ratio...

a tactical withdrawal truly seemed like the only rational choice left to preserve their lives.

"Retreat?" However, the Ironblood Grand Warlord suddenly unleashed a sharp, piercing sneer. He spun around, sweeping a ferocious, predatory glare over every single commander present, before locking his eyes directly onto Warchief Blackstone.

"Great Warchief... have you truly allowed yourself to be terrified by an insignificant, pathetic human Lord?"

"Grand Warlord! Watch your tongue!" Warchief Blackstone roared, his eyes bulging with fury as his massive hands violently gripped the armrests of his throne. The Ironblood Grand Warlord did not flinch in the slightest. Striding purposefully to the strategic sand table in the center of the pavilion, he violently yanked out the red flag marking Greywater Village and ruthlessly snapped it in half in his grip.

"Great Warchief! Use your head and think logically!" The Ironblood Grand Warlord pointed fiercely at the sand table, his chillingly rational analysis cutting straight to the absolute core of the issue:"Soren is human! Those two thousand soldiers under his command are flesh-and-blood mortals! They are not tireless golems! They feel fatigue! They must eat, and they must sleep!"

"What exactly has Greywater Village endured over the past two days and one night?!"

"First, they weathered an endless, day-and-night saturation bombardment of Centaur arrows! Immediately following that, they were scorched by the Alchemical Fire-Oil carpet-bombed by our Wyverns! And finally, they were dragged into a brutal, apocalyptic melee meat grinder against the Centaur elites!" The Ironblood Grand Warlord's voice swelled with absolute, unshakeable conviction.

"Great Warchief, human physical stamina has absolute limits! And those thousands of repeating heavy crossbows—no matter how exquisitely they are engineered, after sustaining such hyper-intense, continuous rates of fire, their internal winches and bowstrings must be catastrophically fatigued by now!"

Slamming both hands onto the edge of the sand table, he locked eyes with Warchief Blackstone, delivering his tactical verdict syllable by agonizing syllable:"That ramshackle wooden village is currently running on absolute fumes! Whether it is the physical stamina of their soldiers, their defensive material reserves, or the structural durability of their siege engines... they must be entirely, utterly depleted!"

"At this very moment, Greywater Village is a spent force! If we just push a little harder... if we apply even a microscopic fraction more pressure... that seemingly impregnable defensive line will instantly collapse like a house of cards!" This chillingly rational, flawlessly logical deduction instantly tore through the fog of fear clouding the command pavilion. Warchief Blackstone's expression, previously marred by hesitation and cowardice, began to violently shift.

His mind rapidly ran tactical simulations based on the Grand Warlord's logic: He's right! That was a continuous, rotational assault by ten thousand Centaurs! Even the elite knight orders of the Holy Halycon Empire wouldn't have the strength left to lift their wrists after surviving a bloodbath of that magnitude. No matter how miraculous Greywater Village is, are their crossbow bolt reserves truly infinite? Do their soldiers not require sleep?!

"The Grand Warlord is right..." Warchief Blackstone muttered. His massive hands once again gripped his throne, the temporarily extinguished inferno of his innate savagery rapidly reigniting.

"The Centaurs may be exterminated, but they absolutely did not die in vain! Heka sacrificed his entire race to completely bleed Greywater Village dry!"

"Right now, Soren likely doesn't even possess the physical strength to draw a bowstring! They are the ones who are completely exhausted!" Seeing the Warchief's battlelust rekindled, the Ironblood Grand Warlord knew it was the exact moment to drop the ultimate, fatal political weight. He stood up straight, stepped to Warchief Blackstone's side, and, lowering his voice so only the two of them could hear, ruthlessly laid bare the brutal political reality of the Orc Alliance.

"Great Warchief, even disregarding all tactical logic... even if Greywater Village somehow still retains hidden reserves, we absolutely cannot retreat!" The Grand Warlord pointed toward the howling blizzard outside the pavilion, gesturing as if pointing at invisible enemies circling them in the dark.

"Do not forget. After losing ten thousand Centaurs, if we tuck our tails and flee like beaten dogs... what does that signify?" This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"It signifies the most unparalleled, catastrophic humiliation the Orc Alliance has suffered in hundreds of years!" The Ironblood Grand Warlord's words were terrifyingly venomous, ruthlessly piercing directly into Warchief Blackstone's absolute, desperate greed for power.

"Right now, the eyes of the entire continent are locked onto this Misty Swamp!"

"The Emperor of the Holy Halycon Empire is watching! The archaic nobles of the Silvermoon Kingdom are watching! And even worse... within our own Alliance, the Governor of the Blood Province and those ancient monsters in the Spire of Shadows are all staring at you from the dark!"

"Great Warchief! Your absolute rulership is built entirely upon an unbroken foundation of victory!"

"If today, commanding tens of thousands of elite main forces, you are routed by a pathetic village of two thousand souls... your supreme authority will instantly evaporate!"

"The microsecond you issue the order to retreat, Soren won't even need to lift a finger! The ambitious vipers within the Alliance who covet your throne will instantly incite mass rebellion and violently drag you down from your position as Great Warchief!" These chilling words flawlessly, completely eradicated whatever pathetic sliver of retreat remained in Warchief Blackstone's mind.

The narcotic allure of supreme power, combined with the paralyzing terror of losing it, was infinitely more potent at driving a tyrant to absolute madness than any fear of death ever could be!

"ROAR!" Warchief Blackstone violently surged from his throne, his gargantuan frame erupting with a suffocating, apocalyptic aura of sheer oppression. The violent shockwave of his aura instantly snuffed out the crackling braziers within the command pavilion! The crushing political pressure, the desperate need to maintain his terrifying facade, and an unquenchable thirst for victory caused him to completely and utterly discard all tactical caution.

"Retreat? NO! In the absolute laws of Blackstone, the word 'retreat' does not exist!" His eyes burning a demonic, bloodshot crimson, Warchief Blackstone issued the absolute military decree that would dictate the fate of this war:"Since those utterly useless Centaur bastards couldn't use their speed to breach the defenses, I will use pure, unadulterated brute force! I will crush that godforsaken village and grind the very earth it sits on into dust!"

He violently snapped his head around, locking his murderous gaze onto a staggeringly robust general standing below—a hulking behemoth sporting massive, thick, curved horns.

"Tauren Warlord! Step forward!"

"Here, Great Warchief!" The gargantuan Tauren general took a heavy, thunderous stride forward. His brutal iron hooves slammed down with such raw kinetic force that they instantly spider-webbed the heavy bluestone floor tiles.

"Relay my command!" Warchief Blackstone violently drew the massive, broad-bladed war scythe from his waist, aiming it dead ahead.

"Abandon all perimeter probing! Instantly mobilize our heavy Tauren shock divisions!"

"A full ten-thousand-strong Tauren army! Throw every last one of them onto the frontline! Bring those massive Totem Pillars you pride yourselves on!"

"I refuse to believe that Soren's trenches can withstand the sheer, apocalyptic physical push of ten thousand heavy Tauren infantry!"

"When the sun rises tomorrow, I want the iron hooves of the Tauren planted firmly upon the burning ruins of Greywater Village! I will use Soren's severed head to wash away the disgrace of Blackstone!"

"For Warchief Blackstone! We shall crush the frail humans into paste!" The Tauren Warlord brutally pounded his rock-hard chest with his massive fists, unleashing a deafening, earth-shaking bovine roar. Wooooooo! Wooooooo! Wooooooo! The freezing gales of the Misty Swamp howled relentlessly, violently whipping snow laced with the stench of scorched meat across Greywater Village's heavily battered defensive line.

The dying embers of the Alchemical Fire-Oil continued to sizzle faintly, sending up choking plumes of acrid, dark smoke. The brutal reality, however, painted an entirely different picture. While Warchief Blackstone and the Ironblood Grand Warlord arrogantly believed Greywater Village had completely exhausted its strength and was utterly devoid of manpower...

deep within Greywater Village's highly complex, subterranean anti-siege tunnel network, a fully organized, completely fresh reserve echelon lay in silent, deadly wait! Deep within the tunnels, the dancing, amber light of everlasting torches cast long shadows against the reinforced earth. Knight Felix stood tall, his hand resting firmly on the hilt of his sword, his vigilant gaze sweeping over the crowd seated before him.

Directly in front of him sat the exact 361 human recruits who had passed the rigorous screening and joined the territory just a few days prior. (Horace, having been elevated to a crucial scholarly role, was naturally absent from their ranks.) These men—former wandering sellswords and bankrupt farmers—did not wear the exorbitantly expensive [Dark Silver Armor]. They were currently clad only in thick, heavy [Padded Cotton Armor].

Listening to the muffled, terrifying rumbling of war echoing from the surface directly above them, many of their legs trembled uncontrollably. Yet, suppressed by the absolute, draconian military law enforced by Felix, not a single man dared to incite the slightest panic or cowardice. They gripped their weapons, waiting with bated breath—fully prepared to surge out at a moment's notice as the ultimate reserves to plug any breach in the frontline!