Chương 69: 69：The Mage's Vow

"I've avenged you... I've finally avenged you..." Tears streamed down Victor's face. He pressed his forehead desperately against the skull, sobbing with a soul-rending grief. An indeterminate amount of time passed before a freezing drizzle began to fall from the sky. The liberated POWs and surviving remnants silently cleared the battlefield. Victor finally pulled himself out of his bottomless sorrow. The genius who had once hidden in an ivory tower studying arcane arts was dead.

Reborn in this muck was a mage consumed by the flames of vengeance. He stood up from the mud and wiped the tears from his face. Cradling the skull in his hands, he walked straight toward Soren, who had been waiting quietly. Victor didn't kneel. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest—left hand resting over the right—and bowed at a perfect ninety-degree angle. It was the Mage's Bow, the highest gesture of respect a spellcaster could offer.

"You could have killed him with a single arrow, but you left the catharsis of slaying my enemy to me."

"I, Victor, thank you, my Lord, for saving my life and granting me my revenge."

"For such an immense debt, even if my bones are ground to dust, it would not be enough to repay you!" Soren looked at the man who had finally straightened his spine. A flash of appreciation crossed his eyes.

"I am Soren." The moment he heard that name, a wave of unbelievable shock washed over Victor.

"S... Soren? The legendary commander who slew the Son of Titan in a dead zone, captured Bone-Shatter Pass, and brought Warchief Blackstone to his wits' end?" Staring at the black-haired man standing before him—a man who looked even younger than himself—Victor felt a profound sense of reverence surge from the depths of his heart. No wonder he could lead such a terrifying squad of heavy infantry. No wonder he could slaughter two hundred Black Iron Orcs as if they were mere target practice.

Victor met Soren's gaze without flinching and frankly revealed his true background:"Lord Soren, since you are also a commander of the Silvermoon Kingdom's Crimson Moon Knights, you must have heard my name." He paused briefly, letting out a bitter, self-deprecating laugh.

"I was once a Silver-tier Mage in the Silvermoon Kingdom's border defense forces."

"The former... Commander of the Mage Regiment." As soon as those words left his mouth, Buck, who was standing behind Soren, sucked in a sharp breath. The nearby soldiers looked like their jaws were about to hit the mud. In this low-magic era, even a Knight Commander like Leona, who commanded two thousand six hundred troops, had to tread carefully around a Mage Regiment Commander! Because a fully formed Mage Regiment—even if it consisted of only a few dozen mages—could unleash strategic-tier spells.

On a large-scale battlefield, their impact rivaled that of two or three entire Knight Regiments! In truth, this also highlighted just how catastrophic Victor's past mistake had been: allowing the orcs to use anti-magic tactics to slaughter dozens of precious spellcasters. Soren's eyelid twitched slightly. Although the Warlord System had already informed him that Victor was a high-tier magical talent, having the man casually drop the bombshell title of "Mage Regiment Commander" still sent ripples through his mind.

Greywater Village was nominally the 1st Vanguard Battalion of the Crimson Moon Knights, but in the eyes of the Kingdom's higher-ups, they were nothing more than cannon fodder exiled to the swamps to rot! Sure, he had used modern military training methods to forge these men into elite soldiers. But in the eyes of society, asking a formerly esteemed Mage Regiment Commander to serve as a lowly grunt in a mere battalion?

If someone pitched that idea in the aristocratic circles of Silvermoon City, they'd absolutely be beheaded for absolute lunacy. The disparity in status was simply too immense! But that was for ordinary people. Who was Soren? He didn't give a damn about bullshit societal hierarchies! Right now, he only knew one thing: his Greywater Village severely lacked effective countermeasures against magic! To fix this fatal flaw, even if the Pope himself were standing in front of him, Soren would find a way to recruit him.

Soren showed absolutely zero humility regarding the man's formerly noble status. Instead, he threw out his invitation with blunt, overbearing confidence:"I don't care how much glory you had in Silvermoon in the past. I'm only talking about the present."

"My troops can slaughter these greenskin bastards like pigs in melee combat, but the moment we face the sickening curses of high-tier Shamans, we take a beating."

"I need a mage who can provide anti-magic countermeasures for my soldiers."

"Victor, join me. Become my soldier, and build an anti-magic defense system for my headquarters!" As his words faded, a deathly silence fell over the gully, broken only by the patter of the falling rain. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Buck swallowed hard. Gary and the other veterans nervously tightened their grips on their weapons. This is pure madness! The Battalion Commander is actually trying to conscript a Mage Regiment Commander as a grunt?

This was a mage we were talking about—a notoriously arrogant breed. Everyone's gaze converged on Victor's pale face. Amidst the suffocating tension, Victor looked down at his reflection in the muddy water. Half a year ago, the aloof, genius Victor, still safely ensconced in his Mage Tower, would have incinerated the hair off anyone who dared make such a demand. He would have deemed it an unpardonable blasphemy against magic. Mages were meant to be enshrined on high, worshipped like demigods!

But at this moment, a look of utter resolve and sudden relief surfaced on Victor's lips. Mage Regiment Commander? Victor mocked himself mercilessly in his heart. When he had screamed for reinforcements in his darkest hour, the bureaucrats of the Silvermoon Kingdom had bolted the city gates to save their own skins. When his mentor's corpse was being desecrated, the nobles who constantly preached about 'honor' had been too terrified to deploy their troops. It was the Kingdom that had abandoned him!

When he was fighting wild dogs for scraps in this fetid, rotting swamp, what good was honor? Dignity? The glory of the Mage Tower? It was all absolute bullshit! What did he crave the most right now? Slaughter! Vengeance! He wanted the orcs who had trampled his mentor's skull to pay a thousand times over in blood! Looking across the entirety of the Mist Swamps, or even the whole Kingdom... only the man standing before him... Only Soren could lead a few dozen men to slaughter the mighty Black Iron Orcs like dogs.

Only Soren had actually placed the blade of vengeance directly into his hands. By following him, he wouldn't have to deal with sickening noble politics. He wouldn't have to retreat ever again! By following him, his only job in this swamp would be to shove lightning bolts down the throats of those greenskin bastards! He took a deep breath of the freezing, rain-swept air and raised his head. His face held no trace of insulted pride—only the refreshing clarity of a man who had shed all the burdens of his past.

Incredibly, Victor grinned, letting out a hearty, liberated laugh. He tied his mentor's skull in a tight knot to his belt. Then, exactly like the lowest-ranking recruit, he smashed his fist fiercely against his left breastplate and shouted his reply:"I am nothing but a prisoner exiled by the Kingdom! I owe you my very life. There is no Commander here anymore!" Dropping to one knee in the muck, Victor swore a crisp, unwavering oath:"I, Victor, am willing to serve as a mage under your command!

May my thunder and hellfire forever reside upon your blade!" The fine, freezing rain pierced the fog, pattering into the pools of dark green blood scattered across the gully. Thanks to Soren's ambush and annihilation tactics, the two-hundred-strong Black Iron Orc force had been completely wiped out. They left behind mountains of battleaxes, maces, studded iron shields, and roughly two hundred nearly-intact suits of Black Iron scale armor.

In the eyes of any human army, this was a staggering fortune—one that would drive the nobles absolutely mad with greed. Sixty-four frontline elite soldiers were currently busy bundling the loot using dried vines. On the other side of the trench, Buck was leading his twenty-odd surviving soldiers, kneeling in the mud. They were digging graves with chipped swords, or even their bare hands. Inside the pit lay nine human corpses, haphazardly arranged.

These were the nine comrades who, just moments ago, had tightly grappled the orcs' weapons to block their retreat, allowing themselves to be hacked to pieces. In the cruel world of the Eresia Continent, both the Orc Alliance and the nobles of the Silvermoon Kingdom shared surprisingly similar views on the lives of low-ranking soldiers: they were completely expendable.

According to the regular army manuals of the Silvermoon Kingdom, unless the fallen was a high-ranking Sir Knight or a Mage, the best fate an ordinary grunt could hope for when dying in the wilderness was a shallow, makeshift grave. More often than not, they were simply abandoned to become rations for the wild beasts. Transporting corpses on long marches was out of the question. Not only did it slow down the army, but it was also seen as inviting the bad luck of death.

Buck wiped the tears and rain from his face, aggressively digging out another handful of dirt.

"Brothers, I know the conditions are rough. The soil in this pit isn't too acidic, so it won't rot you away immediately. In your next life... don't be reborn in the Silvermoon Kingdom..." Just then, a pair of combat boots splashed into a nearby puddle and came to a stop in front of Buck. It was Soren.