Chương 342: 342：Unblockable Execution

Thrum. It was a barely perceptible vibration of the rebounding bowstring. What followed was a bizarre, terrifying phenomenon that defied all mortal comprehension. As the dead-gray [Arrow of Concealment] left the string and punched into the howling night, it didn't produce even the faintest shriek of tearing air! It didn't trigger a single ripple of mana. The shaft completely melted into the pitch-black darkness, as if it didn't even exist in this plane of reality.

Against a miraculous artifact possessing literal, rule-bending destructive power, a distance of five hundred meters completely lost its meaning. In the blink of an eye, the phantom projectile silently collided with the absolute first layer of the Royal Pavilion's defense—the Shamans' [Earthen Armor]. Yet, a heavily fortified magical barrier capable of casually shrugging off the impact of multi-ton boulders was rendered laughably fragile before this dead-gray arrow. There were no violent energy fluctuations.

No blinding flashes of colliding mana. The arrow simply ignored the magical construct entirely and phased right through it. Next came the [Flame Barrier], then the [Storm Aegis]... Every single layered, combined magical defense that the Orcs took such immense pride in—shields fueled by a staggering expenditure of mana—were effortlessly, flawlessly breached! A split second later, the arrow arrived before the Black Steel Royal Guards. Thwip. There were no sparks of violently colliding metal. No deafening crashes.

The [Arrow of Concealment] smoothly phased straight into a cast-iron tower shield several inches thick. Without losing a microsecond of momentum, it punched cleanly through the iron plate armor of the Pigman heavy infantryman hiding behind it, bypassing his monstrously tough physical flesh entirely. The Pigman Royal Guard didn't even register a sliver of pain before the arrow emerged from his back, maintaining an absolutely flawless, perfectly straight trajectory straight for the Royal Pavilion. Silent. Weightless.

And unimaginably lethal. The dead-gray arrow phased directly through the Warchief's lavish robes, materializing directly inside his chest, and flawlessly, violently impaled his heart!

"Warchief! I will go sever that human's—" The Ironblood Grand Warlord beside him was still furiously waving his massive horse-cleaving saber, bellowing for deployment. But before the Warlord could even finish his sentence, an eerie anomaly beside him choked the words right back down his throat. Warchief Blackstone's colossal body abruptly locked up, completely paralyzed. All the suffocating terror, all the bottomless regret—in the exact moment his heart was shredded to paste, they bizarrely vanished.

What rushed into every fiber of his being was a crushing, inescapable sensation of his life force violently hemorrhaging away, stealing even his ability to breathe. With agonizing effort, Warchief Blackstone lowered his head. He stared blankly at the dead-gray arrow jutting from his chest. There was no geyser of blood. The sheer, rule-bending power of the penetration had instantaneously severed every single thread of vitality within his colossal frame.

"How... could this..." The Warchief felt his monstrous strength—the very power he had taken absolute pride in all his life—rapidly being drained into the abyss. His massive, tree-trunk legs turned to jelly. Then, expending the absolute last dregs of his strength, he slowly raised his head. His dying gaze bypassed the dazzling, yet utterly useless magical shields that had failed to protect him, looking five hundred meters into the distance.

There, Soren stood tall, bow in hand, exuding an aura of absolute, crushing supremacy. At the very end of his life, defying all expectations, Warchief Blackstone felt no lingering resentment, no furious indignation. Suddenly, with crystal-clear lucidity, he understood. This was it. This was the absolute, fated end for him and his hundred-thousand-strong army. That human named Soren possessed military tactics that completely transcended this era.

He possessed a ruling philosophy that inspired absolute, fanatical loyalty in his soldiers. And now, he wielded a terrifying, logic-defying weapon of mass destruction that simply could not be blocked. Whether it was personal martial prowess, grand tactical command, or the absolute manipulation of battlefield psychology...

"I... am so, so far beneath him..." A bitter smile, laced with deep self-mockery and a strange sense of absolute relief, surfaced on Warchief Blackstone's rapidly paling face. He had lost. He had lost utterly, without a shred of suspense, and he was completely convinced of his defeat. To die by the hands of a legendary human general who had completely crushed him on every conceivable level... it was a fitting end. THUD!

Accompanied by a heavy, muffled crash, Warchief Blackstone's colossal body violently collapsed backward, slamming heavily onto the deck of the Royal Pavilion. The life and tyrannical ambition in his eyes were permanently extinguished amidst the howling blizzard. Target neutralized! This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Soren's fingers tightened slightly around his bow.

But he knew damn well that now was not the time to close his eyes and bask in the dopamine rush of victory. His mind immediately shifted gears, rapidly calculating his extraction vector. He was currently standing entirely alone in the absolute dead center of a ten-thousand-strong Minotaur army. Five hundred meters straight ahead, the hundred-plus Black Steel Royal Guards armed to the teeth, along with dozens of Orc Shamans ready to unleash magical hell, were not weaklings he could easily brush aside.

Not to mention, although the outer perimeter of ten thousand Minotaurs was temporarily tied down by the high-mobility detachments of Buck, Ilya, and Ein, trapped in blind pursuit and utter chaos... the absolute second they snapped out of it, or if a commander at the Royal Pavilion issued a full collapse order, he—a lone assassin—would instantly be trampled into meat paste by tens of thousands of massive hooves.

"I have to exploit this initial few-minute window where their supreme commander is dead and their command structure is completely paralyzed. I need to melt back into the dark, now." Soren's tactical mind raced. He had already plotted his exit route. Relying on his [Danger Sense] and Grandmaster-tier swordsmanship, he prepared to violently carve his way out and regroup with his troops on the perimeter.

However, the sheer, dramatic, logic-defying reversal that the battlefield took next completely shattered even Soren's wildest calculations. Across the five-hundred-meter frozen avenue, upon the wildly extravagant Royal Pavilion... The Ironblood Grand Warlord stood rooted to the spot, his face completely drained of color. The massive horse-cleaving saber he had just been brandishing to order Soren's annihilation now hung limply at his side, as if all the strength in his arm had been sucked away.

The Grand Warlord stiffly lowered his head. He stared at the utterly dead Warchief Blackstone slumped on the velvet carpet. He saw it crystal clear—the dead-gray arrow buried directly in the Warchief's heart. No blood spilt, yet his life force had been violently, instantly erased. The Warlord violently snapped his head up, his massive, bull-like eyes bulging as he stared straight ahead.

There, the eight-layered magical defense—the [Earthen Armor], the [Flame Barrier], and the rest, maintained by the combined might of eight Shamans—was still glowing brightly! It was still fully operational! It hadn't even registered a single ripple of mana disturbance! And the impenetrable shield-wall formed by the massive tower shields of the hundred Black Steel Royal Guards was still perfectly interlocked, sturdy, and unbreached!

"How is this possible..." The Ironblood Grand Warlord's teeth began to chatter violently. An unprecedented, marrow-freezing terror violently seized his mind. In the fundamentally primitive, conservative military doctrine of the Orcs, absolute strength was truth. High-tier magic and ultra-heavy armor were considered the absolute, impassable boundaries of warfare. But today, what had he just witnessed?!

That completely silent, terrifyingly bizarre arrow had completely, utterly ignored every single physical law and magical rule in existence! It had effortlessly phased through an impregnable fortress and casually reaped the life of his supreme commander! The Warlord's gaze pierced the driving blizzard, locking dead onto the human standing motionless five hundred meters away. He had absolutely no idea that Soren possessed only one [Arrow of Concealment].

In the Grand Warlord's utterly shattered reality, Soren had just casually drawn his bow as if taking a standard practice shot. If that human could execute the Warchief with an attack that literally could not be blocked, then all Soren had to do right now was causally pluck another arrow from his quiver, nock it, and use that exact same unblockable attack to violently explode the Warlord's own heart!

"Magic can't stop him! Black steel plate can't stop him! He's a fucking monster! I'm going to die here!" This terrifying leap of logic violently shattered every last ounce of the Grand Warlord's pride and martial courage. Absolute cowardice completely overrode his rationality. He didn't want to die! He absolutely refused to die as pathetically as Warchief Blackstone, rotting in this freezing, filthy mudhole!

To save his own hide, the Ironblood Grand Warlord moved faster than anyone, making a move that left every single Royal Guard around him utterly shell-shocked. CLANG! The Grand Warlord violently hurled his massive horse-cleaving saber—the absolute symbol of his supreme command—right onto the ice. Ignoring the Shamans rushing to support him, he grabbed the railing of the Royal Pavilion with both hands.

Mustering every last drop of air in his massive lungs, he roared in incredibly broken, heavily accented Human Common at the figure five hundred meters away:"DO NOT SHOOT! HUMAN COMMANDER! DO NOT SHOOT! I SURRENDER! I DEMAND PARLEY!" Terrified that Soren wouldn't hear him over the wind, or that the human would simply draw his bow too fast, the Warlord spoke so quickly he practically bit his own tongue off, frantically hurling out every single bargaining chip he possessed.