Chương 99: 99：Artillery of the Hobgoblin

"Urgh... gurgle..." The old Shaman's eyes instantly bulged from their sockets, the whites flooding with blood. His hands desperately clawed at his spurting neck. A bizarre, wet wheezing sound escaped his throat, like a bellows leaking air. Above him, the half-formed vortex of apocalyptic fire immediately lost its anchor. Spiraling out of control, the spell violently collapsed in on itself and detonated in a chaotic backlash of magical energy! BOOM! The explosive shockwave completely engulfed them.

The Blacksteel orc guards protecting him had their flesh roasted right off their bones, while the old Shaman himself was instantly reduced to a charred, smoking husk. Even his bone staff was blasted into splintered fragments. Beside Soren, the hobgoblin Luger's eyeballs nearly popped out of his skull. He stared at the impossible distance and the sheer, absurd angle of the Shaman's death, then slowly, stiffly turned his head to look at the shoddy, notoriously inaccurate wooden crossbow in Soren's hands.

Gods of War... Luger inhaled a sharp breath of cold air, his scalp tingling with profound numbness. What kind of terrifying marksmanship was this? Amidst the deafening chaos, the gloomy rain, and the heavily obscured line of sight of the valley, this man had just one-shot a high-tier Shaman using a piece of absolute garbage! If that crossbow had been aimed at his own head earlier... Luger knew with chilling certainty that he wouldn't have even known how he died.

Yet, this profound shock also ignited Luger's fierce, unyielding pride as a hobgoblin chieftain. He absolutely could not let this human commander—their prospective ally—look down on the goblin race!

"Push that precision torsion catapult over here!" Luger roared, violently shoving two of his subordinates aside as he strode up to a compact, exquisitely crafted siege engine. Down in the valley, the sudden, explosive death of the Shaman had driven the scar-faced Commander into an utter frenzy. Standing atop a barricade made of his own dead soldiers, he wildly swung his battleaxe to deflect falling logs, his head thrown back as he screamed curses at the unseen archers above.

"You're mine," Luger growled, a cruel, savage grin splitting his face. As a hobgoblin blessed with exceptional mechanical talent, he operated the artillery piece himself. Gripping the micro-adjustment winch, he gave it three precise turns. Click. Click. Click. Without using a single aiming sight, relying purely on his innate intuition for mechanical tension and trajectory, Luger yanked the firing lever. THWACK! The specially reinforced torsion arms unleashed a deafening snap.

A hardened granite boulder, smoothed out and roughly the size of a fully grown wild boar, launched into the sky, tracing a sickeningly perfect parabolic arc. Below, the scar-faced Commander seemed to hear the whistle of the Reaper. He abruptly looked up, but he didn't even have time to finish raising his axe to block. CRASH! Like a judgment from the heavens, the massive boulder struck the Commander dead-center on the very top of his helmet with the force of a meteor!

It was like taking a sledgehammer to a watermelon. The Blacksteel helmet didn't split, but under the sheer, unadulterated kinetic force of the boulder, the Commander's relatively fragile cervical spine instantly snapped and collapsed. His fang-filled head, along with the helmet, was violently driven straight down into his own broad chest cavity! Dead. As dead as a living thing could possibly be. Beautiful shot.

Soren took in the entire sequence without a change in expression, but internally, his appraisal of Luger skyrocketed. That wasn't just brute force. That flawless mastery over distance, parabolic arcs, and mechanical precision was a masterclass in siege and defensive warfare. This hobgoblin possessed the innate qualities of a modern artillery commander!

The successive, brutal deaths of both the Shaman and their Commander completely shattered the final psychological defenses of the remaining twenty-odd Blacksteel elites. Stripped of their leadership, the once-arrogant orcs dissolved into disorganized panic. Some desperately tried to claw their way up the sheer cliffs, only to have their fingers crushed by falling debris before plummeting to their deaths.

Others threw down their axes and charged the collapsed rock walls blocking the exits, slamming their bodies against the rubble like trapped, frenzied boars. It was in this moment that the absolute superiority of blunt force trauma against heavy armor was put on full display. Soren looked down with cold, calculating eyes. When hundred-pound rocks fell from a height of sixty meters and slammed into the orcs' fiercely proud Blacksteel chest plates... The armor remained unbreached, but the men inside were already dead.

The kinetic shockwaves bypassed the metal entirely, vibrating directly through their flesh and instantly turning their internal organs into pulverized mush. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Dark green, clotted blood poured from the mouths and noses of numerous Blacksteel Orcs. They lay in the freezing mud, gasping for air like beached catfish, their lives rapidly fading amidst catastrophic internal hemorrhaging. It took less than half an hour.

When the final boulder thudded against the valley wall, and the last poisoned bolt sank into flesh... The massive expanse of Severed Head Valley fell dead silent. There were no more orcish curses. Only the cold rain, pinging softly against the battered, shattered remains of Blacksteel armor. Over forty of the Blackstone Warband's elite trump cards—including the ill-fated twin-headed wargs—had been utterly annihilated in this rocky basin. No survivors. Not a single one.

"Hold! Stand down from alert! Commence the sweep and clear!" Soren threw off his camouflage netting, his voice radiating absolute, unquestionable authority, cutting right through the sound of the rain. A swarm of goblins shimmied down the thick vines hanging from the cliffs, descending into the valley like agile monkeys. Soren descended with measured, steady steps. His black iron boots struck the blood-soaked mud with a chilling, rhythmic thud.

Gazing at the goblins, who clearly lacked a modern military understanding of 'mopping up', he issued a set of brutally professional orders:"Listen up, goblins! Put away your bows! Draw your daggers and armor-piercing stilettos!"

"I don't care if the pile of green meat on the ground is still breathing, or even if its head is already crushed—as long as the body isn't torn in half, you treat it as a threat!"

"Pry up their intact chest plates! Lift their visors! Aim for the eyes, the throat slits, the armpits, and the heart! Stab deep and twist!"

"I will not tolerate a single variable! No dying counterattacks, and absolutely no one playing dead! Am I understood?" This was a doctrine etched into Soren's very soul: The only safe enemy is a thoroughly double-tapped enemy. Hearing this icy decree, the goblins—who had just been gleefully preparing to loot the shiny Blacksteel armor—shivered. Squelch! Squelch! Crunch... A dense chorus of flesh-puncturing sounds quickly echoed throughout the valley. The systematic execution of the double-tap protocol was underway.

Over a dozen Blacksteel Orcs who hadn't fully expired and were indeed playing dead, waiting for a chance to strike back, were mercilessly put down. Amidst despairing twitches, poisoned daggers were ruthlessly driven through their armpits or eye sockets, turning their brains and hearts to slush. By this time, Luger had trudged through the mud to the valley floor. He tilted his rain-washed face up, looking at the gruesome, mangled corpses of the Blackstone Warband's elites scattered around him.

Seeing the very monsters who had trampled on goblin dignity for years now reduced to nothing but meat on a chopping block... The suffocating grievance that had weighed on Luger and his entire tribe for decades finally erupted, venting out like a volcanic explosion!

"GLORIOUS!" The 1. 9-meter-tall hobgoblin threw his head back and let out a wild, heaven-shaking roar. The sound echoed off the cliffs, a primal release of years of blood and tears. He abruptly turned, striding rapidly toward Soren. Ignoring the blood and mud beneath his feet, he placed a hand over his chest and bowed his head deeply.

"Lord Soren. If not for your god-like stratagem today, Lone Cliff would have undoubtedly met its doom." When Luger raised his head again, his grayish-green eyes were filled with absolute reverence. He didn't just see the possibility of a goblin rebellion anymore; he saw the immeasurable, terrifying potential of the human commander standing before him. He threw his arms wide open, his tone burning with enthusiasm and a desperate desire to curry favor.

"The geothermal caves on the mountain are warm! Our storehouses are stocked with the finest dried subterranean mushrooms, and we have several vats of thirty-year-old stalactite wine!"

"You single-handedly won this war for us! Tonight, no matter what, you must stay at our cavern camp!"

"We will throw the grandest victory feast to entertain the most honored friend of the goblin race!" Listening to the deafening cheers of the goblins around him, a genuine smile finally broke through Soren's cold exterior. Today, he had successfully secured the allegiance of an advanced goblin faction that possessed critical water-purification technology, all while slaughtering a hundred Blacksteel elites and an Orc Shaman.

The strategic value of today's harvest far exceeded wiping out some bandit camp in the arid wastelands.

"Lead the way, Luger," Soren replied with an amicable smile.

"That is exactly what I wanted to discuss with you... the specific plans for an alliance between Greywater Village and your people."