Chương 85: 85：System Rewards and the Hidden Arsenal

This was a textbook special forces raid. Leveraging the blind-spot infiltration techniques of his past life's special ops squad, Soren utterly crushed the orcs' laughable piecemeal tactics. The moment Soren wiped his blade clean and sheathed his sword... [Ding!] [Bounty Target Eliminated: Gul of the Withered Bone Heights! Status: Completed!] [Reward 1: [Eagle Eye Perception] Level Breakthrough!] [Reward 2: [Hardened Skin]!] Soren's body suddenly jolted as a strange ripple washed over his eyes.

A faint heat bloomed deep within his pupils. When he opened his eyes again, the entire world had changed. The thick, perennial white fog that blanketed the Mist Swamp now seemed almost translucent to his gaze. To his astonishment, not only had his visual range more than doubled, but his kinetic vision had also become incredibly sharp. He could clearly track the entire trajectory of a water droplet falling from a dead leaf fifty paces away.

He could even discern the rapid beating of a venomous insect's wings deep within the fog. For Soren, who would soon be marching and fighting in this very mist, such a massive expansion to his line of sight was an absolute godsend! Before he could fully adapt to his mutated eyes, a boiling surge of heat erupted from his heart, flooding through his limbs and bones! Soren let out a muffled groan, dropping to one knee in the mud. He could feel his bones emitting faint, popping cracks.

Every inch of his skin was being forcibly restructured.

"My Lord!" Gary and Renn cried out in alarm. Fearing Soren had sustained a hidden injury, they immediately rushed over.

"Don't panic. I'm fine. Stand back!" Soren clenched his jaw tight. After a dozen agonizing breaths, the severe pain receded like the ebbing tide. He stood up and pulled aside his half-plate armor, revealing a shocking sight. Under the gloomy sky, the skin on his arm now faintly gleamed with a metallic luster. Soren drew his dagger and slashed the blade hard against his left forearm. Clang! No blood was spilled.

The friction between the dagger and his skin produced the sharp sound of metal striking metal, leaving behind nothing but a faint white scratch! [Hardened Skin: Grants 70% physical damage mitigation against conventional slashing and piercing attacks!] Soren drew in a sharp breath. The Monk, Renn, possessed this exact talent. It was the only reason Renn could fight bare-chested on the battlefield, tanking brutal smashes from orcish maces.

However, Renn was bound by his monastic vows and couldn't wear any metal armor; doing so would nullify his discipline. But Soren was different! He didn't have any class restrictions. Right now, he was wearing heavy black iron armor capable of stopping heavy arrows and crossbow bolts!

"Seventy percent physical damage mitigation, stacked with the defense of black iron heavy armor..." Previously, when fighting deep within enemy lines, he had to rely on his masterful Military Swordsmanship to weave through attacks, burning massive amounts of stamina just to dodge the orcs' relentless cleaving. But now? He could just tank the enemy's blades and shove his sword straight into their hearts! The double-layered defense had reached an absolutely terrifying level!

Taking a deep breath, Soren sheathed his dagger. His eyes regained their icy, calculating gleam.

"Stand down from combat alert!"

"Loot the battlefield! Strip them of all weapons, armor, and anything that has even a speck of iron on it. Hell, if there's a bloody belt buckle, I want it peeled off!"

"Meyer, go search the camp's dungeon and storehouses!"

"Yes, My Lord!" the sixty-four soldiers roared in unison. They immediately scattered, scavenging the area like diligent worker ants. A few minutes later. Meyer walked up to Soren, his expression incredibly grim. Behind him was a group they had pulled from the rear camp's dungeon. Lowering his voice, Meyer spoke with barely suppressed fury:"My Lord, we found them huddled next to a trench of filth in the corner of the dungeon. Seventeen people in total. All human refugees. None of them are men."

Soren looked past Meyer. There stood seventeen women. They lacked even basic rags to cover themselves. Their hair was matted into clumps with mud, and their skin was covered in vicious, purple-black whip marks. What was most heart-wrenching, however, were their eyes. There wasn't a single trace of life left in them—only the hollow, terrifying numbness of walking corpses.

Seeing the ground littered with brutally slaughtered orcs, and standing before these human warriors who looked like gods of death, the women's frail bodies trembled uncontrollably. Several of them simply collapsed into the mud, weeping softly. Stolen novel; please report. Meyer clenched his jaw and added, "That bastard, Gul... whenever they captured human refugees, the very first thing they did was toss any man capable of putting up a fight right into the stewing pot."

"These women had their front teeth forcefully yanked out. The orcs kept them around as playthings for their lust... and as emergency travel rations. A few of them have fresh knife marks where flesh was carved right off their bodies." Hearing this horrific report, the eyes of the elite soldiers cleaning the battlefield nearby turned red with rage. Many of them had once been just like these women—desperate refugees struggling to survive in the Mist Swamp! Soren strode over to the shivering women.

"My name is Soren. I am the Lord of Greywater Village."

"The greenskin bastards who did this to you are all dead. You're safe now." Soren crouched down. He unclasped his own black cloak—stained with blood, but still incredibly warm—and draped it gently over the shoulders of a young girl in the front whose face had turned a sickly purple from the cold. Then, he turned back and barked an order.

"Renn! Bring out all our marching rations! Get them some soft bread and hand out clean water!"

"Gary! Find some clean animal-hide tents and cut them down to make clothes for them!"

"Once we've cleared this camp, my wolf cavalry unit will personally escort you back to Greywater Village. I have plenty of homes in my territory for you to settle in." As sweet, crisp water slid down their parched throats, and as dry biscuits with a hint of sweetness were pressed into their hands... The seventeen women, who had all believed they were doomed to die here, looked up into Soren's calm, steady eyes. They couldn't hold it in any longer. Gut-wrenching sobs echoed through the rain-slicked ruins.

Just then, Gary's excited shout rang out from near a semi-underground earth-and-stone bunker a short distance away.

"My Lord! My Lord, you need to see this! There's a cellar here!" Soren ordered Renn to continue comforting the refugees while he hurriedly made his way to the cellar. The moment he stepped inside, even Soren—a veteran who had seen countless grand spectacles—couldn't help but catch his breath. Under the dim light of a torch, he saw over a dozen reinforced oak crates, each at least five feet long. Their lids had been violently pried open.

And neatly stacked inside those crates were over a hundred standard-issue military longbows! Right next to the longbow crates were ten jam-packed crates of arrows. A quick glance estimated at least ten thousand heavy, armor-piercing arrows! But that wasn't all. Scattered haphazardly around the cellar were dozens of plundered sacks of wheat, oat hardtack, and massive quantities of cured meat. Out here in the wasteland, Gul had managed to hoard an incredible arsenal!

"Good lord... this is all top-tier gear that was recently hijacked from the Holy Halycon Empire's Royal Griffin Knights..." Meyer had followed him in. He reached out, running a hand over the belly of one of the longbows. The smooth texture of the moisture-resistant resin coating made him rub his hands together in absolute glee. The surrounding frontline elites stared at the weapons designed for elite human infantry, unmasked yearning in their eyes.

Having only ever used crude, self-made shortbows, most of these men couldn't even fully comprehend the true value of these dark wooden staves. Soren grabbed one of the military-issue longbows single-handedly. Feeling its hefty weight, a flash of pure joy sparked in his eyes. He turned back to his men and immediately began laying out his tactical vision:"Ordinary civilian shortbows are usually made of cheap composite wood or basic cattle horn, and their bowstrings are slack."

"Their maximum lethal range is less than thirty paces. Against orc infantry wearing iron armor or possessing naturally thick hides, even a direct hit will do little more than make those greenskins bleed a bit." Soren gave the longbow in his hand a vicious tug. A massive resistance pushed back from the specially woven bowstring. Even with the monstrous physical power granted by his Son of Titan bloodline, he actually felt a hint of real resistance.

"Listen to the string!" Soren released his grip, and the bowstring snapped back with a violent THWACK!

"This is a heavy infantry bow, crafted by the Imperial Military from ironwood that has been air-dried for five years!"

"The bowstring is twisted from multiple strands of ox sinew! Its draw weight is easily over a hundred and fifty pounds!" Soren nonchalantly pulled an armor-piercing arrow from a neighboring crate. Unlike the broadheads used for common hunting, the tip of this arrow was a viciously sharp, elongated triangular prism that gleamed with a dark, deadly luster.

"Armor-piercing bodkins."