Chương 334: 334：Tactical Reverse-Engineering

"We... won..." Sharpshooter Ein leaned against the railing of his watchtower. Looking down at the endless sea of centaur corpses, and the massive, hideous wyvern carcass in the distance, tears of utter shock uncharacteristically welled up in his eyes.

"Not only did we win, we didn't even lose a single brother..." Darion, the deputy commander of the Macedonian Phalanx, gripped the outer logs of the trench tightly with both hands. His body was trembling violently—a shudder born of pure disbelief.

"A miracle... this is a fucking miracle for humanity!" Unable to control the surging emotions in his chest any longer, Darion abruptly spun around. Facing the dazed soldiers behind him, he roared with all his might:"Do you know what you've just done?!"

"For the past four hundred and fifty years of the Dark Age, whenever the orcs sent out their massive armies, our human regular forces—even the heavy cavalry of the Holy Halycon Empire—were forced to cower behind massive city walls and passively take a beating! Has there ever been an exception?"

"When did we not have to trade three, even five human lives just to take down a single orc?" Darion pointed feverishly at the blood-soaked battlefield beyond the defensive line, his voice echoing with absolute hype.

"But today! We, the people of Greywater Village—a bunch of commoners who couldn't even afford a full meal!"

"With a force of just over two thousand men, on a defensive line with no walls, we met an army of over ten thousand highly mobile centaurs head-on and utterly crushed them!"

"We even turned the tables and used our anti-air ballistae to blast their arrogant, monstrous wyvern into minced meat!" He was right! Every single soldier standing in those trenches was a firsthand witness to this unprecedented, miraculous battle! They were once lowly refugees. They were slaves bred as livestock by alien races, soldiers slaughtered at whim by orcs, weaklings who could only close their eyes helplessly before trampling centaur hooves.

But now, using the heavy repeating crossbows in their hands, the Dark Silver Armor on their backs, and the tactics taught by Lord Soren, they had brutally shattered the arrogance of the foreign races. They had broken humanity's humiliating fate of being nothing but slaughter fodder for the orcs!

"Victory!"

"Glory to Lord Soren!" No one knew who raised their weapon first, but moments later, an earth-shattering roar exploded above the front lines of Greywater Village! The two-thousand-odd exhausted soldiers felt as though a new surge of power had been injected into their veins. Forgetting their aching muscles and bleeding wounds, they stood tall and struck their breastplates violently with their weapons, erupting into a warcry that could shake the heavens!

The roar pierced through the thick fog of the Misty Swamp and banished the biting chill of winter. An atmosphere of soaring morale tightly enveloped every single warrior! They firmly believed that as long as Lord Soren stood before them, even if Warchief Blackstone mobilized his entire army of a hundred thousand, they would dare to use their weapons to bury all one hundred thousand greenskins right here in this mud! …… Inside, all the primary military officers of Greywater Village had gathered.

Talon, commander of the Macedonian Phalanx, hadn't even wiped the blood from his face. His burly frame paced excitedly in front of a brazier. Sharpshooter Ein silently inspected his longbow, his expression flushed with agitation. Buck, the Wolf Cavalry Commander, grinned from ear to ear as he took massive gulps of hard liquor. The half-elf Ilya, Quartermaster Kyle, Silver Mage Victor... everyone looked at the man seated at the head of the long table with eyes full of worship and reverence.

"Sit down." Soren commanded with authority, pressing his hands against the map-strewn table and instantly silencing the clamor in the room. The generals immediately straightened their backs and sat down in unison. Soren slowly swept his gaze over the faces of his officers and calmly began the post-battle debriefing.

"Gentlemen, we have just won a battle that, according to the military doctrines of this entire continent, was impossible to win."

"Facing the numerical superiority of an Orc Alliance army of ten thousand centaurs, and facing the aerial bombardment of a wyvern, we at Greywater Village achieved zero casualties." Hearing the words "zero casualties," even though they knew it was an absolute fact, the officers couldn't help but breathe heavily.

"However!" Soren's tone shifted, completely devoid of the usual post-victory arrogance. He spoke coolly, "Do not lose your minds over epic bard tales of 'two thousand men crushing an army of ten thousand' meant to fool commoners."

"As commanders, you must see through to the true nature of this victory!"

"The reason we won isn't because our two thousand men actually slaughtered ten thousand."

"The centaurs' core fighting force—the ones who actually dared to charge to their deaths—only consisted of those three thousand backbone elites. The remaining seven thousand were nothing but the elderly, the weak, the sick, and the crippled, all forced into the ranks!" Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"Our zero casualties were built on the fact that our heavy firepower and Dark Silver Armor completely suppressed those three thousand elites!"

"When those three thousand arrogant, elite centaurs fell before our barricades, that seemingly massive ten-thousand-strong army effectively lost its core pillar. It shattered and outright collapsed!" Soren's words served as a stark wake-up call, immediately cooling the heated heads of Talon and the others. Following their Lord's line of thought, they instantly grasped the military logic: strike the enemy's vital point; to break an army, first break its elites.

"Brilliant, my Lord! As long as we continue to rely on this solid defensive line, no matter what monsters Warchief Blackstone sends next, we can bleed their elites dry in our trenches and under our heavy crossbows!" Talon roared with brimming confidence.

"Exactly! If we hold the Greywater Village defense line, this mudhole will become the graveyard of the entire orc army!" Buck chimed in. Just as the generals assumed that victory was guaranteed simply by holding the line, Soren's next words left them shell-shocked.

"Hold the line? Who told you I was going to keep defending?" Soren stood straight, then leaned forward, exuding a chilling, murderous intent.

"Intelligence Captain Meyer has confirmed that Warchief Blackstone is furious. He has dispatched his true trump card—a full army of ten thousand Minotaurs! Facing these fresh reinforcements, not only will I not blindly defend Greywater Village, but I will charge out and execute a counter-encirclement!" Annihilate an army of ten thousand Minotaurs? The room fell into absolute shock at these words. If anyone else had said this, the generals would have thought them mad.

But the man saying it was Soren—the one who had led them to miracle after miracle! After a moment of being stunned, instead of feeling fear, Talon, Buck, and the others felt hot blood rushing to their heads.

"Fuck yeah! We'll strike wherever the Lord points!"

"Let's give those horned beasts a taste of our repeating crossbows!" The officers jumped to their feet, drawing their weapons to passionately request deployment.

"Quiet!" Just as the martial commanders reached a fever pitch, Victor coldly interrupted them. Chief Silver Mage Victor stood up, his face etched with an unprecedented gravity. As a high-tier spellcaster, Victor had to maintain calm, strategic thinking in this moment.

"My Lord, forgive my bluntness, but this is pure suicide!" Ignoring the glaring eyes of the generals, Victor strode up to the map and pointed at the defensive markers of Greywater Village.

"Our numbers are still at a massive disadvantage! How did we manage to annihilate the centaur vanguard with zero casualties? We relied on chain traps! We relied on solid underground anti-air bunkers! We relied on the cover advantage provided by our barricades and trenches!" Trembling with anxiety, Victor pressed on.

"If we abandon these fortified structures—built with countless drops of sweat and blood—to transition into an offensive right now, it's equivalent to throwing away our only cover advantage!"

"Sending two thousand infantry out into the open mud to counter-encircle ten thousand Minotaurs? That is sending our men out without protection to die for nothing!" Victor's concerns were not unfounded. Even Talon, who had just been clamoring for a charge, calmed down, looking at Soren with deeply furrowed brows. Looking at Victor, Soren didn't get angry; rather, his eyes showed deep appreciation.

An invincible army didn't just need warriors willing to die; it needed strategists brave enough to offer sober opposition when the commander's head got too hot. But Soren had already prepared for this.

"Victor, your calculations are precise, but you've only calculated our side. You haven't fully read the enemy," Soren said with a cold smirk.

"You aren't the only one who thinks we should defend. Warchief Blackstone, far away in Bloodfang Fortress, and the approaching ten thousand Minotaurs—they won't expect us to dare take the offensive either!"

"According to conventional military doctrine, after repelling a fierce assault from ten thousand centaurs, a defending force of two thousand men would be physically exhausted. They would inevitably choose to huddle within their defenses to rest, heal, and recover. This is the enemy's psychological blind spot!"

"In the last battle, why did we hold our ground? Because the centaurs excelled in the ultra-high mobility provided by their four legs!"

"They love horse-archery and kiting tactics! That's why we held the trenches—to rob them of their running space, turning their mobility advantage into a suicidal weakness."

"But!" Soren challenged them, his eyes gleaming.

"Do you truly believe that the exact same tactic will work against Minotaurs?"