Chương 352: 352：Grand Duke Valentine's Perfect Calculation

As absurd and utterly logic-defying as this battle report was, the invocation of the Blood Oath meant the Governor of the Blood Province absolutely wouldn't dare fabricate a single word. Even if the chaotic, hysterical routing troops had exaggerated the minor details, the core truth remained: Warchief Blackstone was dead, their ace legions were completely annihilated, and the entire theater of war had catastrophically collapsed. These were ironclad, undeniable facts.

"Issue a direct decree to the 【Supreme War Council】. Strip the Governor of the Blood Province and the Ironblood Grand Warlord of all military and political authority immediately." The Beast King's voice echoed through the grand hall, every single syllable dripping with ruthless, absolute cruelty.

"Cast the [Shadow Shackles] upon them and drag them back to the Capital in chains. I will make them pay in blood for a defeat so humiliating it will forever be nailed to the Alliance's pillar of shame."

"Place the entirety of the Blood Province under strict martial law. The Seventh Vanguard Legion will assume absolute control over all provincial defenses." It was a thunderous, draconian purge. With just a few sentences, the Beast King violently decreed the miserable, agonizing fate of two supreme overlords who commanded massive territories.

Immediately after, the Beast King turned his penetrating gaze to the massive strategic sandbox, locking dead onto the ragged marker flag representing Greywater Village planted deep within the Misty Swamp.

"Simultaneously, issue a Royal Ironclad Edict to the scout division under the 【Supreme War Council】. I want every single archival file on this human named Soren. Do not omit even the most microscopic detail. From this second forward, our intelligence network will maintain absolute, suffocating surveillance over every single movement made by Greywater Village!"

Listening to this rapid-fire, high-level strategic deployment, an Elder of the 【Supreme War Council】 bit the bullet and stepped forward, asking with hesitant confusion,"Your Majesty, even if Blackstone was defeated, Greywater Village still only possesses a mere two thousand men."

"Is it truly necessary to recall your elite Royal Vanguard from the Eastern Front just to trample them?"

"Fools!" The Beast King glared at the Elder, his voice exploding like a thunderclap. He slowly descended the jade steps, approaching the massive sandbox. A suffocating, crushing aura of absolute authority violently descended, forcing every single minister and warlord to hold their breath.

"Are you all truly still so blinded by your own arrogance that you believe this is merely some trivial border skirmish? That we simply lost a Warchief and a few thousand troops?!" The Beast King slammed his massive finger violently onto the marker of Greywater Village.

"Rip open those eyes you've let be blinded by past glories, and truly look at the geopolitical reality! Feel the apocalyptic chill blowing out of that damned swamp!"

"First, analyze the strategic geography! The Misty Swamp spans over a thousand miles! To its north lies our Bloodfang Fortress. To its west, the Broken Blade Mountains of the Ironpeak Duchy. To its east, Abysswater Keep. And to its south, it directly borders both the Holy Halycon Empire and the Silvermoon Kingdom!"

"In the past, it was a toxic dead zone where no force could establish a foothold. It allowed us to march our massive legions straight through without an ounce of resistance."

"But now?! This man named Soren has driven a heavily fortified stronghold right into its absolute core! Furthermore, he has the capability to unify and link the Crimson Moon Knights, Ironwood Fortress, and every other scattered faction struggling within those bogs!" The Beast King's finger violently carved a harsh line across the sand.

"This is an absolute, lethal stab to our jugular! He has ruthlessly severed our core strategic transit hub! As long as Greywater Village stands, every single time we attempt to march our massive legions south into the human heartland, our supply lines will face the constant, lethal threat of being instantly choked off!"

"Soren hasn't just won a battle; he has violently rewritten the geopolitical landscape of the entire Northern Front!" Staring down at this newly formed, unified defensive network on the sandbox, many of the battle-hardened warlords physically shivered, cold sweat beading on their foreheads. It was only now they realized the horrifying truth.

In the blink of an eye, that completely dilapidated, miserable village had quietly mutated into a colossal, impenetrable barricade capable of deadlocking the southern advance of the Alliance's hundreds of thousands of troops!

"Yet, that is still not the most fatal threat!" The Beast King spoke, his authoritative voice now laced with profound, marrow-freezing apprehension.

"Think about it! A battle report detailing two thousand troops, zero casualties, and the total annihilation of our elite ace legions... Once that information is broadcast across the continent by the Daily Gazettes, do you have any idea what kind of apocalyptic storm it will ignite across the thirty-plus nations of the human faction?!" A dark, stormy shadow cast over the Beast King's face.

"For four hundred and fifty years, humanity has cowered in the suffocating shadow of the massacres we've inflicted upon them."

"That deep-seated, generational terror is our absolute greatest weapon! It is the very reason we can consistently force massive human armies to route before the battle even truly begins."

"But Soren just violently shattered that myth! He used cold, ironclad facts to declare to all of humanity that Orcs cannot only be killed, but we can be effortlessly slaughtered like pigs! He is actively reforging the spiritual spine of the entire human race!"

"Once apex human commanders like Grand Duke Valentine of the Holy Halycon Empire, or the core heavy legions of the Silvermoon Kingdom, are intoxicated by the sheer adrenaline of this zero-casualty miracle... Once they abandon their cowardly, passive defense and launch a full-scale, active counter-offensive against us..." Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"The delicate balance of this centuries-long war will be violently, irreversibly broken!" Breathing within the grand hall became ragged and difficult. The arrogant Orc Chieftains finally fully grasped the terrifying reality: Soren hadn't merely butchered tens of thousands of their soldiers; he had ruthlessly executed the supreme strategic deterrence of the entire Orc Alliance.

But the Beast King's next words struck an even deeper, far more terrifying nerve—violently piercing the fragile, absolute pain point of every single privileged aristocratic Overlord in the room. It sent a wave of absolute, soul-freezing ice down their spines.

"And yet, none of that is what truly terrifies me about him." The Beast King straightened his massive frame, sweeping a suffocating gaze over the high-and-mighty nobles.

"Look closely at the most inconspicuous, yet utterly lethal detail buried within this battle report."

"His Greywater Village actively accepted the unconditional surrender of those two hundred defecting Centaur youths."

"Furthermore, he did not shackle them in iron. He did not enslave them. He completely eradicated racial discrimination, granting them equal treatment and educational rights directly within his military ranks!" Hearing the words 'equality' and 'no oppression', the faces of the 【Supreme War Council】 ministers violently drained of all color. Within the Orc Alliance, their absolute rule was maintained purely through draconian, barbaric class oppression. Pigmen, Minotaurs, Centaurs...

to the high command, these tens of millions of lower-tier clans were nothing but expendable, biological trash meant to soak up arrows and trigger traps! It was precisely this ruthless, tyrannical centralization that forged the towering, unshakeable pyramid of the Orc Alliance.

"Gentlemen, this is the absolutely lethal, ideological warfare this human named Soren is actively waging against us!" Even the supreme, tyrannical Beast King who ruled half the world couldn't completely mask the profound, chilling dread in his voice.

"The only reason our lower-tier cannon fodder obediently march into the meat grinder under the threat of our whips and butcher's blades is because they have absolutely no alternative! If they run to the human kingdoms, the humans will merely butcher them as hideous monsters!"

"But now?! Out in that desolate Misty Swamp, Soren has violently ignited a blazing beacon of equality and sanctuary!"

"Once this radical ideology—that there is a place where they aren't mere cannon fodder, where they face zero oppression—spreads with unstoppable, explosive speed... Once it violently takes root in the hearts of tens of millions, hundreds of millions of our lowly Minotaurs, Centaurs, and Goblins..."

"Once the suffocating, bloody rage that has accumulated for centuries at the bottom of our society finally finds a visionary Overlord willing to embrace them..." The Beast King delivered the ultimate, apocalyptic truth:"The human kingdoms won't even need to mobilize a single army! The massive, inexhaustible foundation of meat shields that our entire Alliance relies upon will violently, catastrophically collapse from the inside out!" Icy sweat violently poured down the foreheads of the all-powerful Orc Chieftains.

At this exact moment, the Beast King's profound, terrifying analysis fully penetrated their thick skulls. A lethal, impassable barricade severing their military logistics. An unstoppable spiritual totem rallying the entire human faction. And an ideological plague designed to completely rot the foundation of the Orc Alliance from the inside. Right here, right now, within the majestic Grand Hall of Beasts, not a single arrogant Overlord dared to harbor even a fraction of a shred of contempt for Greywater Village.

"Therefore, bury your pathetic, utterly worthless arrogance." The Beast King slowly pivoted, ascending the steps back to his Throne of Bones. He radiated the profound, absolute gravity of a ruler facing an existential nemesis. He issued an edict that violently shifted the entire global theater of war:"From this very second forward, instantly halt all campaign preparations targeting the Holy Halycon Empire and the other human nations.

Take the absolute crosshairs of the entire Orc Alliance's war machine, and lock them dead onto the Misty Swamp!"

"Deliver an order to the Cult of the Withered: I authorize the deployment of bio-plagues at all costs! Order every single Clan to prep for absolute war."

"This so-called defense of Greywater Village is no longer a localized border skirmish over a dilapidated outpost!"

"Soren is the absolute focal point of this era! This has violently escalated into a monumental, world-shaking clash that will decide the ultimate fate of the war between humanity and the Orc Alliance!" Meanwhile, thousands of miles away... Within the Northern Defense Command of the Holy Halycon Empire, deep inside the impregnable Megalith Fortress. In the absolute core operations room.

The Supreme Commander of the Empire's Northern Front, Grand Duke Valentine, stood with his hands clasped firmly behind his back, staring down at a massive tactical sandbox. This exalted commander, a man who literally wielded half the military might of the entire Empire, already bore streaks of gray at his temples. Draped in a heavy, scarlet velvet greatcoat, his piercing eyes were locked dead onto the exact same sector of the map: the Misty Swamp, right where the ragged flag of Greywater Village was planted.

Standing rigidly at his side was the Empire's Chief Tactician, General Marr. Clad in a crisp gray military uniform, Marr's brows were locked in a deep, agonizing frown as he aggressively shifted markers across the sandbox, running simulations of the absurdly skewed troop ratios between the two forces.

"Four days..." General Marr whispered, his voice heavy with grim certainty.

"Since the apocalyptic blizzards sealed off all avenues of retreat, and the massive Orc legions completed their absolute encirclement of Greywater Village... it has been exactly four agonizing days."