Outside the gates of the Stormrift Fortress, the frozen earth was trampled and shattered beneath thousands of iron boots.
The north wind howled down their collars. The biting chill had every soldier hunching their shoulders against the cold.
Leona and Sylvia stood by the roadside, gripping crudely fashioned clipboards. The two rapidly cross-checked the roster tallies.
"Heavy cavalry—counting the ones missing limbs but still able to sit on a horse—four hundred and fifty-six."
Sylvia muttered the numbers, head bowed, before pointing toward the formation of veterans who were busy stitching leather straps back onto their plate armor.
"Got it."
Leona slashed a heavy checkmark onto her parchment.
"The longbowmen formation is looking grim. Four hundred and eighty-one left. Only a hundred and twenty of them have full quivers, the rest can't even scrape together a full set of arrows."
"Eighty-three in the mage unit, all low-tier. Only half of them can chuck a fireball further than thirty meters."
"As for the infantry: four hundred and fifty-five heavies. The remaining eleven hundred light infantrymen are holding nothing but shoddy longswords and a handful of throwing spears."
Sylvia concluded her report.
This knightly order, which had just pulled off a miraculous victory, was actually dead broke.
The two-thousand-strong force stood in formation, preparing to march out and plunge into the northern mist.
Right then, Soren walked over carrying a freshly selected fine-steel longsword. He gestured with his chin toward the rear of the formation—the leftover reserves from the recruit camp.
"I handpicked twenty-five recruits from the dregs. I've formed a scout squad to explore the Misty Swamp."
Leona looked at him, bewildered.
"What do you mean?"
"You're not heading over to the First Cavalry Battalion? With your merits, the position of Heavy Cavalry Commander is practically yours."
Soren glanced at the well-armored veterans in the distance and calmly shook his head.
What he desired wasn't immediate, localized power, but infinite future possibilities. That, and an absolute thirst for unyielding loyalty.
"The Vice Commander is enough to lead the heavy cavalry."
Sylvia couldn't help but interject."Those kids are completely green. They've never even seen blood."
"I'll teach them how to bleed." Soren offered no further explanation.
His [Warlord System] required him to cultivate his own private army and establish a personal territory. Blending in with the main army was undoubtedly safer, but it wouldn't allow him to forge a fiercely loyal retinue or carve out his own domain.
Leona stared into Soren's placid, unreadable eyes for three long seconds.
Finally, she waved her hand dismissively but with a spirited grin."Suit yourself. Just don't go dying somewhere nobody can see you. Good luck!"
……
Four hours later. The eastern edge of the Misty Swamp.
Sunlight was rapidly draining from the sky above. The terrain of pine needles and permafrost gradually surrendered to black sludge and twisted, grotesque vines.
There was no sign of the sun overhead. A thick, ashen fog blanketed the area, causing visibility to plummet. Soon, they could barely see fifty meters ahead.
The air here was uncomfortably dense, laced with a faint, pungent spiciness. Beneath their boots, the rotting humus bubbled and popped with black ooze.
Soren led the way deeper into the swamp. His leather boots squelched through the freezing mud, but he uttered not a single word of complaint. His back remained taut, like a bow drawn and ready to fire.
Behind him, however, his twenty-five teenage recruits were struggling to keep their composure. The biting wind sapped not only their body heat, but their courage.
A short boy clutching a round shield had fingers tinged a bruised, freezing purple, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. Surrounded by blackened, ghastly tree branches, even the slightest shifting shadow made him jump out of his skin.
Suddenly—
Clang! Crack!
Abnormal sounds carried on the wind. The incredibly crisp clash of metal, followed by the concussive pop of magic violently striking a target.
Someone was fighting in the Misty Swamp.
Soren froze mid-step. He gently pulled his right foot back, letting it land without a sound. He didn't even turn his head, simply raising his right hand into a clenched fist—the tactical signal to halt.
Immediately after, he pointed his index finger down and traced a half-circle.
[Enemy spotted. Three o'clock. Conceal yourselves and prepare to flank.]
Thanks to the basic drills Soren had forced upon them during the march, the recruits understood the gesture. It was an order to hit the dirt. Flustered but obedient, they scrambled silently to their bellies, hiding behind the dense scrub.
Crouching low, Soren used a protruding mossy rock as a foothold to shimmy up the ridge. His gaze pierced the lower layer of the fog.
Down in the hollow beneath him, a hunt was underway.
It was a quintessentially outfitted Blackstone Clan wolf-rider squad, boasting forty-three massive dire wolves. They were currently circling and boxing in two humans who were completely caked in mud. The orcs rode atop giant beasts that stood waist-high at the shoulder, brandishing serrated cleavers and heavy flails.
Soren shifted his gaze.
The two humans were desperately rolling and dodging through a storm of snapping jaws and flashing blades.
One was dressed in a knight squire's attire, frantically holding up a heavy kite shield to cover their rear. The other was a middle-aged man backed against a shattered tree trunk. His movements were sharp, disciplined, and lethally efficient.
This man's combat awareness was nothing short of terrifying. Even with a visible gash on his leg, his footwork remained utterly flawless, allowing him to evade the simultaneous lunges of three giant wolves.
The hand-and-a-half sword he wielded, forged with twin blood grooves, was far from ordinary. Exquisite sapphires were inlaid into its crossguard.
Zzz-crack!
He unleashed a horizontal slash, and a violent arc of blue lightning erupted across the blade. The lightning enchantment surged through the conductive steel. The two closest wolf-riders instantly had their sword-hands charred black, forcing them to drop their weapons with shrieks of pain.
A combat-hardened general, possesses solid mid-tier magical sword arts, highly likely from a top-tier aristocratic family.
Soren's tactical mind instantly categorized the man's identity. This wasn't the kind of combat prowess an ordinary patrolman could display.
Down below, the orcs had initially been howling wildly, barking out bizarre, tongue-clicking commands like"Take 'em alive!""Ransom meat!" and"Soft-skinned human coin purses!" Because of this, they had been holding back in their attacks.
But that playful mockery vanished as the pile of wolf corpses grew. The human's enchanted weapon had already inflicted severe casualties upon them: five dead and six wounded.
The wolf-rider chieftain's expression morphed from sadistic amusement to unbridled fury. He was an older, black-armored orc missing the top half of his left ear. He let out a low, guttural curse.
Instantly, the lassos intended to snag the humans' limbs ceased. They were replaced by palm-wide throwing axes and heavy iron javelins.
Whoosh! Smash!
The first wave of projectiles rained down. The composite wooden shield hoisted by the squire was blown to splinters. Two javelins, rigged with spinning barbs, ripped through the remaining defenses without losing speed and skewered the squire clean through the chest.
The kinetic force lifted his body off its feet, slamming the corpse heavily into the muddy earth behind him.
"Lance!!" the surviving noble roared in anguish.
The blue glow of his enchanted blade flickered and dimmed. His mana pool was running dry, his physical stamina was at its absolute limit, and a mixture of sweat and swamp muck blinded his vision.
Thirty-eight elite wolf-riders were still closing the net around him.
He was a dead man walking.
The noble gripped his longsword tightly, abandoning all pretense of defending his rear. He shifted into a suicidal breakthrough stance. Though driven to a literal dead end, the man showed not a shred of an intention to beg for his life.
Up on the ridge, Soren stared down at that isolated, defiant figure. He actually quite liked the ruthless tenacity this human possessed.
At that exact moment:
[Ding!]
[Battlefield Quest Issued]
[Objective: Rescue the stranger on the brink of death.]
[Reward: High-Tier Skill—【Orcish Mastery (Native Level)】. Bonus Reward: Tier-2 Wondrous Item—【Arrow of Concealment】 x1.]
Orcish Mastery? On the battlefield, nothing was more valuable than being able to understand the enemy's communications. As for the wondrous item, that was a phenomenally rare tactical asset.
There was no need to hesitate.
Soren rose into a half-crouch. His left arm pushed out while his right hand drew back, pulling the Elven longbow【Windwhisper】 taut until it bent like a full moon.
Three incredibly subtle wisps of cyan light spiraled around the bow's chassis.
Eagle Eye Perception.
In a flash.
The world in Soren's eyes was completely filtered. The chaotic, darting targets in the distant fog suddenly looked as if someone had hit the slow-motion button.
The hot plumes of breath exhaled by the dire wolves, the minute currents of air resistance, the precise swaying trajectories of every muscle-bound orc. . .
Target A locked: Half-ear, black armor (Chieftain-tier Orc Warlord). Vulnerability: The seam of his boiled leather collar.
Target B locked: The strongest threat, a halberd-wielding Centurion currently preparing to charge and decapitate the human noble. Vulnerability: Left eye socket.
Target C locked: The heavy-armored brute on the right flank preparing to chuck an alchemical firebomb. Vulnerability: Exposed, unhelmeted forehead.
Soren fluidly drew three fletched arrows from his beast-hide quiver. Nock, draw, loose.
Thwip. Thwip. Thwip.
First second. The orc chieftain astride the most ferocious alpha-wolf suddenly felt a piercing chill in his neck. He looked down, only to see a pure-white fletched arrow buried dead-center in his windpipe.
Second second. The Centurion, who had closed to within four meters of the human noble, had his head violently snap back. A gaping crater exploded right through his warty, green skull.
Third second. The orc holding the firebomb had just cocked his arm back to throw. An arrow effortlessly sliced through his left eye and burst out the back of his cranium.
As a byproduct of his death twitch, the glass flask slipped from his grasp, shattering at his feet and instantly combusting. The blazing inferno engulfed several nearby wolf-riders, sending them screeching in agony.
It was three seconds of ruthless, hyper-efficient, aesthetically pleasing violence.
Down in the hollow, the arrogant, tightening circle of wolf-riders was utterly stupefied. None of them could comprehend where the arrows had come from. With their leaders dead, their chain of command instantly collapsed.
Up on the ridge, Soren slung his bow, drew his longsword, and swung his arm forward in a sweeping arc.
"Squad, form ranks!" he barked."I want four volleys, thrown simultaneously! Aim directly at the largest cluster of black armor!"
The twenty-five teenage recruits beside him were still shivering, their limbs numb from fear. But driven by their commander's booming orders, muscle memory took over. They yanked the heavy short-spears from their backs and hurled them blindly down into the bewildered cluster of orcs.
There was absolutely zero technique involved—only raw, panicked strength. But quantity is a quality all its own! It was a pure saturation bombardment!
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
A dense rain of nearly thirty erratic spears plummeted from the fog, brutally pinning six more orc wolf-riders straight into the mud.
Without their chieftain, milling about in absolute panic and unsure whether to fight or flee, the remaining enemies were sitting ducks.
Soren thrust his steel longsword into the air.
"Charge!"
He kicked off the ridge, hurtling down like a dark gale. He had the high ground, gravity, momentum, and—most importantly—an enemy force reeling in leaderless chaos.
"Charge!"
"Follow the Commander!"
"If you don't wanna die, get to the front!"
Even absolute rookies had moments when their blood boiled. Their battle cries, though laced with trembling fear, echoed with a manic courage that sounded almost like a localized avalanche. Charging down the slope, the silhouettes of those twenty-five boys looked incredibly imposing.
Down below, the surviving orc sub-commander had initially wanted to stand his ground. But seeing this wall of screaming, suicidal humans diving out of the fog, he completely miscalculated, assuming he had walked into a massive human ambush.
He took one last look at the cleanly assassinated corpse of his chieftain, let out a pathetic yelp, whipped his dire wolf's flank, and bolted.
Seeing their acting commander flee, the remaining dozen orcs lost whatever shred of fighting spirit they had left. The squad of hulking, black-armored brutes scattered like frightened rats, disappearing into the depths of the black mist.
All that remained was a ravaged battlefield and over a dozen rapidly cooling corpses.
The thundering downhill charge abruptly ground to a halt.
Soren pressed his hand downward in a 'stay' gesture, stopping the flushed, heavily panting recruits from blindly chasing the enemy into the fog.
Lowering his fine-steel longsword, he parted the crowd of boys and walked toward the center of the battlefield.
There, the human noble was half-kneeling in the mud, propped up by his sword, violently coughing up mouthfuls of dark blood.