Chương 5: 5：Blood on the Snow， Fire on the Bow

At that moment, Soren noticed the cyan runes on the Windwhisper Bow had noticeably dimmed. The high-intensity rapid fire had drained its mana, leaving the bow's trembling slightly. Lowering the longbow, Soren carefully wrapped it back in its cloth bindings with great care before slinging it diagonally across his back. The surrounding air hung heavy with the coppery, sweet stench of blood. The front line had already pushed forward by three hundred meters, and the knights were in a blood-crazed frenzy.

But it wasn't enough. They were still too far from the target. Soren drew the sidesword at his waist. It was just an ordinary standard-issue steel sword used by the Kingdom's army—shoddily crafted and sporting small chips along its edge. Yet, the moment his fingers curled around the hilt, an innate sense of familiarity washed over him. Grandmaster-tier Military Swordsmanship. Two stunted, green-skinned goblins lunged at him, trying to exploit the brief window while he changed weapons.

Soren didn't even spare them a glance. A step forward. An upward slash. While the goblins' bodies were still airborne, their heads cleanly detached from their necks. With a flick of his wrist, the blade reversed its arc. Squelch. A ghoul attempting to gnaw at his thigh was pinned dead to the permafrost, its heart pierced with pinpoint accuracy. The Titan's Blood boiled in his veins. Amidst this freezing blizzard, Soren felt absolutely no cold.

These low-tier, red-eyed monsters roaring around him couldn't even touch the hem of his clothes. … Directly ahead at the battlefield command post, a towering, three-meter-tall Blackstone Orc Centurion witnessed this scene. He was clad in finely forged black-gold heavy armor, and the double-bladed battle axe in his grip was larger than an average man's entire body. He was the core commander overseeing the front line.

The Centurion had already noticed the annihilation of the skeleton archer command unit on the high cliffs. And the culprit was standing right there beneath the banner of the Crimson Moon Knights—the bow-carrying recruit currently slaughtering their thralls.

"Roar!" The Centurion leveled a massive finger at Soren, bellowing a battle cry.

"There he is!"

"That archer! A thousand-coin bounty to whoever brings me his head!"

"Form ranks! Kill him at all costs!" Following the command, the chaotic Orc frontline quickly pivoted. A massive squad of ogres wielding heavy warhammers moved to intercept Sylvia, blocking her path forward.

"Bastards! Get out of the way!" Sylvia raised her shield, forcefully tanking two heavy hammer blows. Her warhorse whinnied and stumbled backward. The orcs seized the opportunity to form a tight encirclement, completely swallowing up the young recruit within their ranks. Sylvia cast a frantic glance backward, shouting in shock and fury, "Soren! Fall back!" It was too late.

Eleven unusually massive Orc Elites had vaulted over the front lines, completely sealing off all of Soren's escape routes—front, back, left, and right. Each of them wore fully enclosed steel helms, revealing nothing but their blood-red eyes. The leader was the elite among elites, he wielded a massive flail on a heavy iron chain, whirling it through the air with a menacing whoosh. In an instant, Soren was left standing amidst a carpet of goblin corpses, completely cut off from any living comrades.

"For the Warchief!" the Orc leader roared. Out here on the battlefield, killing this sharpshooter who had assassinated their commander would instantly halve the human threat. Soren stood dead center, his gaze sweeping over the eleven heavily armored elites bearing down on him like mountains. Flee? No. Slaughtering these eleven elite orcs would make a massive contribution to his military merit ledger. He turned his head and broke into an exceedingly thrilled smile, his stark white teeth gleaming in the gloom.

It was the smile of a predator looking at its prey. It made the nearest Orc leader's eyelid twitch involuntarily.

"What is he smiling about?! Kill him!" The eleven Orc Elites struck simultaneously, their collective charge making the earth tremble. The howling wind of a weapon from the left arrived first! A three-hundred-pound, broad-bladed executioner's axe cleaved straight down toward the crown of Soren's head. Soren planted his foot, twisting his heel heavily into the dirt. The Titan's Blood pumped a surge of berserk strength through his veins. Instead of retreating, he lunged forward.

In the split-second the axe blade parted the air just inches from his nose, Soren tilted his entire body forty-five degrees to the right, narrowly slipping past the devastating strike. Raising his wrist, he angled the sword tip downwards. Schlick. That ordinary, chipped steel sword stabbed with absolute, unerring precision straight into the orc's armpit—right through a two-inch gap in its heavy armor. Straight into its chest cavity. He twisted the hilt. Pulled it out!

Scalding black blood splattered across Soren's face. The massive corpse had only just begun to topple when Soren used the momentum of withdrawing his sword to deliver a devastating back kick! Bang! The orc attempting a sneak attack from behind was sent flying over three meters away, shield and all, by an unimaginable, monstrous force. Its steel breastplate caved in completely, accompanied by the sickening crunch of shattered bones. Two seconds. Two down.

"Box him in!" The furious flail-wielding Orc leader bellowed, swinging his massive iron ball toward Soren's knees. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. At the exact same moment, three battle axes swept in from the front, entirely cutting off any space to jump or duck. A dead end. Soren's pupils constricted slightly. The world seemed to slow to a crawl, as if playing in slow motion. He made his judgment in a fraction of a second!

Gripping the hilt with both hands, he took a massive stride forward and unleashed a horizontal sweep directly into the path of the three incoming battle axes! Clang! Crack! A continuous symphony of shattering sounds rang out! Soren had aimed his strike at the hardwood hafts of the battle axes. Backed by his terrifying strength, the three solid wooden shafts cleanly snapped in two. The three orcs were left holding nothing but useless wooden stumps.

The momentum carried his blade through the sweep, while the now-off-balance orcs fully exposed their most vulnerable necks. Squelch, squelch, squelch. A long arc of crimson sprayed through the air. A fatal slash opened up across all three of the orcs' throats. That was five dead. Letting go of the hilt with his right hand, Soren reached out and grabbed the neck guard of an orc on his flank who was preparing a cheap shot. With a violent inward yank, he dragged the orc over to use as a meat shield on his left. Clang.

Another orc's longsword missed its target, biting deep into the unfortunate meat-shield's shoulder and throwing off a shower of sparks. Soren followed up with a casual thrust of his own blade, ending the attacker. It was an absolutely hyper-efficient slaughter. From start to finish, the entire encirclement lasted barely fifty seconds.

By the time Soren sheared off half the palm of the final elite—the flail-wielding leader—leaving him howling, dropping his weapon, and desperately trying to crawl away while clutching his mangled stump... The only one left standing in the clearing was a recruit holding a blood-drenched sword. Sylvia, who had been anxiously shouting commands and trying to lead her squad to Soren's rescue, had her greatsword buried deep into the dirt from the momentum of her previous strike. She didn't pull it out.

Standing just a few meters away, she stared stiffly at the carnage before her. The Orc Heavy Infantry had always been hailed as the elite among elites. Even the Heavy Armored Knights under Sylvia's command would only ever trade one-for-one against a heavily armored Orc. For regular Kingdom soldiers, human wave tactics were the only way to bring one down. Yet now, a whole squad of elite, heavily armored Orcs littered the ground. Soren wasn't missing an arm or a leg, even his breathing hadn't fully lost its rhythm.

His movements had been purely technical, devoid of wasted energy. Every single swing of his sword existed solely to end a life. It was a god-given talent for killing.

"One against ten..." Sylvia murmured in disbelief. Over on the other side, Commander Leona, sitting atop her warhorse, had an entirely different reaction.

"Hahaha!" Having just cleaved through a barricade blocking her path, Leona caught the grand finale of this solo performance. The woman's blood immediately boiled with excitement.

"Did that kid grow up chugging fire dragon blood?!" she roared."Dammit, I've been a Commander for three years and even I haven't pushed my sword arts to that level!" Leona yanked hard on the reins, causing her warhorse to rear up with a piercing whinny.

"Did you see that?!" Leona thrust her broadsword toward Soren, who was currently catching his breath amidst a dozen corpses. Her roar boomed across the entire battlefield:"One of our fresh recruits just slaughtered an entire elite squad by himself!"

"Are you grizzled veterans of the Crimson Moon really going to let that little brat steal all the glory tonight?!" Those words proved more effective than any rallying cry. The Crimson Moon Knights looked toward the front lines. The snow-filled craters were littered with black-armored Orcs. Shattered armor plating was strewn everywhere. And standing atop that mountain of corpses was a lean silhouette, his eyes as cold as absolute ice. The sight of it lit a roaring fire in the hearts of every Crimson Moon warrior.

One of the lieutenants immediately flushed red in the neck, screaming, "Infantry! Push the damn line forward!"

"Kill them all!"

"Charge!" The Orc vanguard had lost its Centurion and its most elite heavy shock troops. Now, faced with a human battalion surging with sky-high morale, their defensive line utterly collapsed. The great banner of the Crimson Moon Knights followed in Soren's wake, pushing forward without resistance. One hundred meters. Two hundred meters.

Military boots and horse hooves waded through rivers of blood, pressing on until the silhouettes at the very edge of their vision—the shapes hidden beneath tarps behind the black supply wagons—finally came into clear view. One thousand, one hundred meters! Soren abruptly halted his advance in the snow. This is the spot! Panting heavily, Leona dragged her greatsword over to his flank. Her chest heaved violently, but her eyes were brilliantly bright as she stared at him.

"We're here!" Sylvia led her Heavy Armored Knights to form a literal wall of meat and steel directly in front of him, leaving only a narrow gap for line of sight. Soren drew in a deep breath of the freezing air and sheathed his nearly ruined sword. He turned and planted his feet firmly apart. The bow was back in his hands, feeling like an extension of his own body. Soren reached back and drew his absolute last projectile: a splintering, Exploding Flame enchanted arrow, tipped with a crude ruby prism.