Chương 364: A Hero More Lethal Than Orcs

Elena let out a long, heavy sigh.

"He isn't just winning a battle; he is actively, ruthlessly clearing every single external obstacle for Greywater Village's long-term expansion!"

"This is a macro-strategic vision that completely transcends the campaign itself. He looked right past the life and death of hundreds of thousands of troops, locking his gaze directly onto the geopolitical development of the next several years..." Elena spoke with profound, absolute solemnity: "His vision doesn't just put those petty, power-hungry aristocrats in the Capital to shame. Even veteran commanders like you and me should feel profoundly humbled in this moment."

Hearing Elena's razor-sharp dissection, the command tent plunged into a brief, heavy silence. Under the flickering torchlight, Leona's initial, unbridled euphoria slowly morphed into a deep, resounding awe. It was true. While she was agonizing daily over tomorrow's grain rations and scattered Orc raiding parties, Soren's gaze had long since bypassed the immediate front lines, locking onto the grand, overarching chessboard of the entire continent.

After expressing her heartfelt reverence, Elena, viewing the situation through the lens of the Silvermoon Kingdom's military merit system, laid out her logical deductions:"With this single campaign, Soren completely annihilated thousands of enemy troops, forced the rout of tens of thousands of monstrous beasts, and executed two supreme enemy commanders—the Centaur Chieftain and Warchief Blackstone himself. He violently shattered an apocalyptic encirclement forged by thirty thousand Orc elites."

"What kind of mind-bending, earth-shattering military merit is that?!" Elena's pace quickened, her tone rising with conviction:"A battle record of this magnitude... even if you placed it in the historically rich Holy Halycon Empire, a nation overflowing with legendary generals, the Emperor himself would immediately bypass all conventional protocol! He would instantly elevate Soren to the supreme commander of a mainline Imperial Legion!

He would absolutely be bestowed the title of Marquis with actual, physical territory, and his future path to Duke would be unconditionally guaranteed!"

"And in our Silvermoon Kingdom, it should be even more absolute!"

"According to the Kingdom's Military Codex, those scribes in the Capital should be working completely through the night, drafting a Royal Decree to directly anoint Soren as a Marquis wielding absolute military power!" Elena spoke with absolute certainty: "Bypassing the ranks of Baron, Viscount, and Earl in a single leap—in the eyes of any sane person, a promotion of that scale is the only logical conclusion." However, upon hearing Elena's impassioned analysis, Leona's emotions rapidly cooled.

This commoner-born female knight, who had personally suffered the vicious ostracization and suppression of the Capital's political system, let out a harsh, mocking sneer. Leona walked back to the oak table. She picked up a worn leather waterskin, uncorked it, and took a long swig of cheap, bitter ale. She turned back around. While she absolutely acknowledged Soren's unparalleled military genius, she ruthlessly, definitively shot down Elena's naive expectations.

"A Marquis with actual power? A mainline commander?" Leona shook her head, her voice dripping with pure, unadulterated cynicism.

"Elena, you are far too naive."

"I can absolutely guarantee you, for a very long time—perhaps for the next year or two—Soren's actual military rank will not rise by a single inch!"

"Not only will he receive absolutely zero actual military funding, but he won't be granted a single independent battalion befitting a Marquis."

"He will remain shackled to the title of Vice-Commander of the Crimson Moon Knights, and he will continue to bear that grand-sounding, yet fundamentally powerless, bullshit title of [Deputy Border Commander]!" Facing Elena's stunned, wide-eyed expression, Leona casually tossed the leather waterskin back onto the table.

She asked a blunt, razor-sharp question:"Elena, you've spent years embedded in the military, fighting Orcs on the blood-soaked front lines with us, praying daily to the Goddess of the Bright Moon for light... but do you really, truly not comprehend the grotesque, ugly true nature hidden beneath the aristocratic rulers in the Silvermoon Capital?" Elena froze. Granting titles based on military merit was the absolute, fundamental law upon which human nations were built!

If the Capital refused to reward a victory that literally saved the nation's defensive line, then what was the point of the nation even existing? Seeing the lingering, idealistic innocence in Elena's eyes, Leona mercilessly ripped away the veil, exposing the sickening political reality hiding behind this glorious battle report.

"Those high-echelon elites in the Capital! Especially that supreme, high-and-mighty Prince Regent, and the cabal of old-blood aristocrats led by that venomous snake, Duke Fernando!" Leona ground her teeth, enunciating every single syllable with biting clarity:"In this low-magic, cold-weapon era, they maintain their absolute, tyrannical rule entirely by relying on inherited family privilege, and their total monopoly over magical resources and mineral veins!"

"Toward a commoner general who wields terrifying military might but possesses absolutely zero noble background... they have never, for a single second, harbored any intention of 'cherishing talent'!"

"The only emotion they feel toward him... is profound, visceral paranoia!" Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Leona pointed a finger, bringing up the Capital's past betrayals.

"Think back to before this campaign! When Soren operated behind enemy lines, executing the divine envoy and rallying tens of thousands of refugees, showcasing his unparalleled capabilities... what did the Capital do?!"

"To prevent Soren from seizing too much armed power behind enemy lines, not only did they refuse to supply him with a single actual arrow, a single grain of wheat, or a single vial of medicine as a reward... they deliberately saddled him with the completely empty, powerless rank of [Deputy Border Commander]!"

"During this crisis, they even abused a Royal Secret Edict to forcefully sever the early-warning communications of Ironwood Fortress!" Leona coldly, ruthlessly laid out the facts:"They attempted to use an undeniable military command to lock Soren inside the Misty Swamp, trapping him in an inescapable death zone! Their absolute, fundamental objective was to use the Orc Alliance as a meat grinder to completely erase Soren, and Greywater Village, from the face of the earth!"

Hearing these words, Elena felt a marrow-freezing chill shoot straight down her spine. A violent shudder wracked her body.

"But... but Soren didn't just win... he won with absolute, flawless dominance..." Elena's rebuttal sounded weak, completely lacking confidence.

"Exactly the opposite! It is because he won too flawlessly!" Leona pointed directly at the core issue:"Elena, do you still not get it? The better Soren fights, the more apocalyptic and glorious his battle record becomes, the higher his prestige skyrockets among the human defensive lines and the tens of thousands of citizens... the more intensely terrified those high-tier nobles in the Silvermoon Capital will become!"

"What are they afraid of?" Leona stared coldly into the distance, as if she could physically see the panicked faces of the aristocrats in the Capital.

"They are terrified that a commoner armed force—capable of annihilating Orc elites with zero casualties and possessing such catastrophic military might—will completely slip the leash of their control!"

"They will lie awake at night in their soft velvet beds, suffocated by the terror that if they actually grant Soren real military power and the territory of a Marquis... what happens if, one day, this Overlord who actively abolishes class oppression decides to rebel? What happens if he points that very same logic-defying archery technique that blew a hole through Warchief Blackstone, straight at the decaying, rotting thrones of the Capital's nobility?!"

"In the eyes of politicians who only know how to manipulate power, a victorious general who refuses to act as an obedient dog is a million times more dangerous than the hostile Orcs!" Therefore, Leona laid out her deadly accurate political prediction:"Faced with a glorious victory that should have the entire nation cheering in the streets... the exact second the high echelons of the Capital receive this battle report, panic will absolutely detonate within their private cabinet meetings."

"Not only will they refuse to cleanly grant Soren the actual power and promotion his strength demands, but they will double down! They will use every single despicable political maneuver and bullshit excuse they can conjure to stall and delay!"

"They'll ship him dozens of crates stuffed with absolutely useless, gaudy medals and worthless parchment scrolls praising his heroism. Outwardly, they will shower his title with glory... but in the shadows, they will violently choke off his logistical support and continue treating him as an active threat!" Listening to Leona's razor-sharp, meticulous political dissection... This time, the military cleric, Elena, sank into a long, profound silence.

She sat slowly back in her wooden chair, her fingers tightly gripping the holy emblem of the Bright Moon around her neck. The blazing hope that had ignited in her heart upon hearing of the victory completely, utterly dissipated before these harsh, agonizing truths. She felt the profound, sickening rot of the human faction's internal structure—a system that actively disregarded the existential survival of the race, caring only about preserving its own bloated privilege.

"How incredibly ironic..." Elena let out a sigh thick with immense, tragic sorrow.

"The hero bleeds and dances on the edge of death on the front lines to carve out a sliver of survival space for humanity... while his compatriots, safely cowering in the rear, sit in plush rooms actively researching how to murder him." She exhaled a long, heavy breath.

"But... hearing all this, I finally see the absolute truth."

"Soren's tactical genius, and the apocalyptic military might he commands, have completely, violently shattered the absolute limits of the Silvermoon Kingdom's control."

"The rotting, decaying system of the Silvermoon Kingdom is fundamentally incapable of containing an entity like him." Hearing Elena finally reach this ultimate conclusion, Leona walked over and gently patted the cleric's shoulder. Though Soren was still, in name, her Vice-Commander—a fact that filled her with immense, unbridled pride—Leona possessed absolutely no selfish desire to keep him leashed to her banner.

"Indeed," Leona said, her voice carrying a profound sense of liberated relief.

"I know his temper better than anyone. With Soren's absolute resolve to act without racial prejudice, and his ironclad will to eradicate class oppression..."

"... there is absolutely no physical way he will ever docilely offer his neck to the butcher's block of the Capital's aristocrats."