At dusk, a scout stumbled through the camp’s main gates.
Covered in blood, he had made it back entirely on foot.
Leaning heavily against a gatepost, he gasped violently, choking out intelligence written in blood: “The southeast border…
an Amani troll army is heading straight for the interior of the forest!” He did not even pause to tend to his bone-deep wounds.
With a bloodstained fingertip, he forcefully traced a twisted pattern onto the cold bluestone ground.
“Along the way, they’ve deployed a new variant of their war totems!” The atmosphere in the camp plummeted to absolute zero.
When Ailong, Firas, and the other elites saw the rune, dread washed over their faces, and they clamped their mouths shut.
Hawksbill strode over, his gaze cutting like a blade across the design.
The thick, weathered hand at his side clenched, then slowly released.
Li Fan stepped forward, his dark eyes locking onto the bizarre rune.
His mind worked at blinding speed.
Three seconds.
“This is an extremely dangerous variant of a war totem.” Li Fan snapped upright, his chilling gaze piercing straight toward Alleria, who was rushing over.
“This isn’t a simple probing infiltration.
It’s a severance rune meant for a decisive strike—designed to cut through our entire battle line like a scalpel.” He took a deep breath and delivered a terrifying deduction: “Their true objective isn’t the southern barrier at all.
It’s the ranger supply depot three kilometers behind it!” As his words fell, a tempest churned beneath Li Fan’s calm exterior.
The Amani trolls had always fought like scavengers, conducting guerrilla raids along the borders.
Why would they suddenly organize such a massive, strategically deep joint operation?
This insane scale and unprecedented coordination between unit types went entirely against the trolls’ naturally undisciplined nature.
Had the gears of history already begun to turn?
Had the terrifying alliance between the orcs and trolls of the Second War already quietly begun?
If so, the long-standing peace of these woods was about to be completely shattered.
Alleria’s deep blue eyes darkened.
She turned to Hawksbill, who nodded with a grim, ashen face.
“Clear the hall,” Alleria ordered, her voice cold as frost.
Everyone except Alleria, Ailong, and Li Fan was promptly cleared from the room.
The heavy wooden doors slammed shut, and a massive strategic map was spread flat across the long table.
Darren, the scout, leaned his battered body forward, pointing at the map to report the enemy’s numbers.
But the moment he reached their assembly coordinates, he swayed violently, his vision going black, and nearly collapsed onto the table.
Li Fan reacted instantly, seizing Darren’s forearm and speaking in a low, firm voice: “You’ve lost too much blood.
Go to the priest and stop the bleeding first.
I can piece together the rest of the intel.” “Shut up!
I can finish!” Darren shoved Li Fan’s hand away, gritting his teeth so hard he swallowed back the bloody foam rising in his throat.
Gripping the edge of the table like an iron vice and running on pure grit, he detailed every rendezvous time and rune coordinate down to the finest detail.
Li Fan did not interrupt again.
Like a cold, precise machine, he absorbed the fragmented pieces of intel, rapidly cross-referencing them against the map coordinates and stripping away logical contradictions.
When the debriefing was complete, silence descended upon the hall.
Only then did Li Fan reach out, steadily pushing the strategic map three inches inward from the southeast corner.
His slender finger, like a drawn blade, tapped three critical coordinates one after another.
“First, this natural sheltered hollow.
It’s their ideal assembly ground, where their witch doctors can set up totems with the highest efficiency.” “Second, the supply depot.
Once this is cut, the ranger front lines will starve for at least two weeks.
This is their real killing blow.” “Third, the retreat route: Death Gulch, twenty degrees to the west.
It allows a rapid downhill withdrawal and will make any pursuers pay a devastating price.” He withdrew his hand, the hunter’s supreme confidence gleaming in his dark eyes.
“The operational window is within forty-eight to seventy-two hours.” Alleria stared intently at him.
“Your reasoning?” Li Fan raised three fingers, his cadence swift and sharp.
“First, marching speed.
They have already been stealthily advancing for at least two days.
“Second, totem deployment cycles.
An array of this scale requires at least thirty-six to forty-eight hours of magical preparation at the most conservative estimate.
“Third, the weather.
Violent winds have raged across the border for the past three days, making magical currents extremely volatile.
Those beasts will definitely launch their main assault during the perfect window right after the wind dies down.” Alleria decisively jotted these three vital points into her military ledger and snapped it shut with a sharp *clack*.
“This top-secret warning must be on the General’s desk tonight.” She turned to Hawksbill, her tone brooking no argument.
“Darren’s scouting report and Li Fan’s tactical deduction.
Include everything—do not omit a single word.” “I’ll write it myself,” Hawksbill rumbled in reply.
The briefing concluded, and Li Fan accompanied Darren to the priest for treatment.
Walking along the dim stone pathway, Darren suddenly turned his head, his bloodshot eyes scrutinizing Li Fan with razor sharpness.
“You’re that human lunatic from the rumors?
Still, your seventy-two-hour estimate is too optimistic.
My gut says forty-eight hours at most.” “Forty-eight hours is the baseline for the elves to prepare,” Li Fan replied evenly, meeting his gaze.
“In an extreme scenario, if their witch doctors completed the totem matrix yesterday…
the time we have left is only thirty-six hours.” Inside the hall, the arcane lamps still cast a cool, azure glow.
Li Fan returned to retrieve his terrain notes.
Alleria sat alone by the strategic map, the warning report resting beside her hand.
Her slender fingers pressed firmly against the coordinates Li Fan had marked, her ice-blue eyes gleaming with intense contemplation.
“Come in.
I have a personal question.” Hearing his footsteps, she didn’t look up.
Li Fan pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Speak.” “When you noted the second point.” She slowly looked up, a dangerous pressure radiating from her gaze.
“Regarding the totem deployment cycle…
such precise data wasn’t in the intel, nor is it in our classified archives.
Where did you get it?” “I took the scattered after-action reports on Amani totem activity from the past two years, cross-referenced them, and compiled the data in my personal notebook,” Li Fan answered calmly.
“It’s a probability model.
I deduced the cycle through raw calculation.” “You built a tactical compilation covering the entire front line all by yourself?” A rare trace of disbelief tinged Alleria’s voice.
“To others, it’s just noise, but to a hunter, when piled together, it becomes a glaring signal of murderous intent.” Li Fan tucked his notes under his arm.
“It’s a habit I forged among heaps of corpses.
No intelligence should ever be wasted.” Alleria stared at him intently, as if trying to see through the human before her.
After a long pause, she crisply added a notation to the end of the report, closed the dossier, and rose.
“That dangerous personal logbook of yours—I want a copy archived in our classified records.” “Fair enough.
I’ll make a copy for you tomorrow.” She strode out, the crisp click of her boots fading down the corridor.
Thirty-six hours later.
The joint Amani forces launched a tempestuous assault, and their primary line of attack eerily matched the second coordinate Li Fan had marked!
However, the ranger supply depot had completed a covert strategic relocation twenty-four hours earlier.
The trolls’ lethal scalpel cleaved nothing but thin air, resulting in zero casualties for the rangers.
Hawksbill marched into the hall and slammed the battle report down before Alleria.
“A direct hit!
Down to the finest detail!” Alleria scanned the report with a cool expression, then looked past the windowpane toward the courtyard outside.
“Send a top-secret follow-up report to the General,” Alleria ordered calmly.
“Make sure to prominently include a special evaluation: ‘Tactical deduction accuracy: 100%.'” That afternoon, Darren mounted a well-rested Hawkstrider, preparing to depart.
As he rode past Li Fan, the taciturn, battle-hardened scout abruptly pulled the reins.
He reached out with a rough, heavy hand and delivered a solid thud against Li Fan’s right shoulder blade.
In the brutal, unspoken code of the border rangers, that stiff gesture meant only one thing: *In a mountain of corpses, I’d trust you with my back.* Li Fan absorbed the heavy impact effortlessly.
“Next time you make it back alive, remember to bring some strong liquor.
Don’t come stumbling through the gate empty-handed again.” Darren gave him a deep look and forced a rugged grin.
Tugging the reins, his Hawkstrider shot through the main gate like an arrow loosed from a bow, swiftly swallowed by the deep, dark green tide of Eversong Woods.
Ailong, who had stood silently nearby the entire time, spoke in a raspy voice: “To earn the respect of those lunatics who lick blood for a living, all it takes is that one rough slap.
He’s acknowledged you completely.” “I know,” Li Fan replied softly, turning his gaze toward the distant sea of trees where a storm was brewing.