250：Hold the Line, Help Has Arrived

Down below the pass.

Listening to the suicidal war cries echoing from the ramparts above, the Orc Commander, Noga, felt a baseless prickle of fear creep into his heart.

But he swiftly banished that flicker of cowardice from his mind.

"Insects struggling on their deathbeds!"

Drawing his commander's saber from his waist, Noga pointed the blade directly at the crumbling mountain pass. He had lost all patience. After a brief respite, he decided to push all his chips onto the table!

"All Black Iron Infantry! Five thousand strong! Death charge! Flatten that mountain peak! Hack their leader into mincemeat!"

Boom! Boom! Boom!

War drums thundered; the earth quaked.

Over five thousand fully rested, heavily armored Black Iron Orcs, driven by Noga, launched a frenzied charge!

"Shamans! Suppressive fire!"

Dozens of massive, explosive magical fireballs soared into the sky once more, illuminating the entire pass with a blinding light and reducing the battlefield to a blistering sea of fire.

"Hold the line! Hold it with your flesh and blood!"

Talon's eyes threatened to split from their sockets. Leading his barbarian warriors, he charged straight into the overwhelming magical flames, engaging the surging Orcs in the most brutal melee imaginable.

In an instant, severed limbs flew through the air. Torrents of blood washed over the stone ramparts, cascading down like a waterfall. Casualties skyrocketed at a terrifying rate.

After madly hacking two Orcs to death, Wolgarr was cleaved cleanly in half by a massive battleaxe. Even in his dying breath, his jaws locked viciously onto an Orc's nose.

Young Barlow was kicked to the ground by a towering Orc, but using every last ounce of his strength, he violently thrust the broken spear bound to his wrist deep into the monster's eye!

"Protect the Chief!"

Amidst the chaos, Talon found himself surrounded by seven or eight elite Black Iron Orcs. He sustained multiple deep, bone-exposing wounds in rapid succession, leaving him struggling for every step.

Just as an Orc's spiked mace was about to smash into the back of Talon's skull—

Thwack!

A flawlessly aimed arrow pierced the heavy blizzard, sinking with a wet thud into the Orc's eye socket and straight into its brain, killing it instantly!

It was Rike!

The young hunter stood atop a perilous, crumbling section of the highest watchtower. He had already exhausted his quiver; that final arrow was a stray shaft he had ripped straight out of his own thigh!

"Rike! Get down! You're a sitting duck up there!" Talon roared.

But Rike didn't retreat.

He could clearly see into the Orc rearguard: two High Shamans had raised their staffs, locking onto Talon's central position. They were conjuring a massive explosive fireball, one more than capable of annihilating that entire area!

"A hunter... never complains..."

Blood spilled from the corner of Rike's mouth. Suddenly unleashing a harrowing, frenzied shriek, he discarded his longbow and threw his entire body off the high wall!

He used his own frail body to firmly intercept the howling, terrifying fireball in mid-air!

BOOM!

A blinding flash of fire detonated in the sky, the searing heat instantly swallowing Rike whole.

"No!" Talon howled, his voice tearing at his throat, eyes weeping blood.

More than half of Rike's body was blasted into a charred, mangled husk as he fell limply at Talon's feet.

Hacking down the surrounding Orcs like a madman, Talon dropped to his knees in the bloody sludge, scooping up Rike's broken body.

"Rike... hold on... just hold on..." Talon, a man forged of iron, wept uncontrollably.

Rike's breathing was impossibly weak. His eyes had been burned blind by the fire, yet he still struggled to extend his sole remaining right hand toward Talon.

Expending his absolute last ounce of strength, he pressed an amulet carved from beast bone, along with a scrap of bloody cloth torn from his clothes, firmly into Talon's palm.

"Chief..." Charred, bloody froth bubbled from Rike's lips, his faint words nearly drowned out by the howling wind. "I... I didn't bring shame to the steppes..."

A smile more tragic than weeping cracked across Rike's charred face. With his dying breath, he haltingly recited the oath written in blood on the scrap of cloth:

"If... if we don't drive back the Orcs... I will never... return to the steppes..."

Before the echo of his words faded, Rike's arm fell limp. All life left him.

Carved into that bone amulet was the name of his little sister, who waited on the steppes, praying day and night for his return.

"AAAAAAHHHH!"

Clutching the blood-stained oath, Talon threw his head back toward the blizzard and unleashed a harrowing, anguished roar.

The cry was laden with endless sorrow, agony, and a monstrous, heaven-defying hatred!

Swarms of Orcs surged forward with rabid intensity, firmly compressing Talon and the few hundred surviving barbarian warriors into the final, desperate corner of the pass.

Grief transmuted into apocalyptic fury!

"Die! Die, you fucking animals!" Talon bellowed.

He cast aside his heavily notched greatsword. From the frozen grip of a fallen brother, he ruthlessly pried loose a hardwood longbow, then yanked several iron-tipped arrows with mangled fletching from the freezing mud.

Dragging his maimed leg, Talon leaned more than half of his body out of a breach in the shattered wall. Under his monstrous strength, the bowstring groaned and creaked. He didn't even notice the string slicing through the flesh of his fingers, peeling the skin back.

Twang! Twang! Twang!

The blood-stained arrows tore into the Orcs scaling the ruins below, punching clean through the throats of two Black Iron Orcs in rapid succession.

Yet, personal valor was utterly insignificant in the face of five thousand heavily armored Orcs swarming the mountainside.

"Crush them! The wall is falling!" The frenzied roars of the Orcs were deafeningly close.

A battleaxe whistled through the air from below, grazing Talon's cheek to shatter the stone bricks beside him. Shrapnel sliced a long, bloody gash across his face.

The dense vanguard of Orcs, stepping over the corpses of their own kind, had finally set foot on the last line of defense. The barbarian warriors of the steppes had reached the absolute brink of total annihilation.

Vice-chief Sangho closed his sole remaining eye. Raising his broken blade, he braced himself for the end.

However, at this life-and-death precipice!

Awooooo!

A long, echoing howl of a wolf pack violently exploded from the depths of the blizzard behind the Orc army!

"What is that noise?"

Just as he was about to order the final, overwhelming assault, Orc Commander Noga whipped his head around, his eyes widening in sheer disbelief.

The blinding blizzard was brutally torn open.

Ninety-three massive Greyswamp Wargs, carrying the Greywater Village wolf riders clad in black iron half-plate, appeared silently at the rear of the Orc horde!

And at the highest vantage point behind the cavalry battalion...

A black windbreaker cloak danced wildly in the storm. Soren stood atop a jagged outcrop of rock, a steel longsword gripped tightly in his hand.

Behind him stood an elite force—one fully capable of overturning the entire battlefield!

Seventy frontline elites heavily clad in matte black steel full-plate armor. A magical ranger battalion one hundred and thirty strong, commanded by the half-elf Ilya. And fifty-one elite longbowmen led by Ein, arrows already nocked to their strings!

We finally made it.

Soren's eyes swept over the meat grinder of a battlefield below. Seeing Talon still fighting tooth and nail on the ramparts, he secretly let out a breath of relief.

Leaving Kyle's two hundred and fifty Macedonian pikemen behind during this forced march was the right call.

First, Greywater Village is our main base and munitions factory; we had to leave an adequate garrison. Second, the Macedonian pike phalanx requires flat, open terrain to maintain its rigid formation. Taking them into this steep, rugged mountain pass would have ruined their coordination, turning them into living targets for the Orcs.

The current unit composition is more than enough to deal with these caught-off-guard Orcs!

Soren turned his head, glancing behind a rocky outcrop acting as cover beside him.

Crouching there was the battlefield recording scholar, Lucia.

This tenacious woman with short, dark brown hair had lips that were currently purple with cold. Her hands were caked in mud and riddled with frostbite, yet she still clutched her parchment ledger fiercely to her chest.

"Two days and two nights. A one-hundred-kilometer forced march through the mountains." Soren looked at Lucia, genuine admiration in his voice. His words cut cleanly through the wind to reach her ears:

"I originally thought you'd be crying halfway, begging me to send an escort to take you back. But you didn't fall behind a single step. You didn't utter a single complaint."

"Lady Lucia, within your frail frame lies a will tougher than the regular armies of the Ironpeak Duchy."

"You have earned my respect, and the respect of this entire army."

Hearing such incredibly high praise, Lucia was overwhelmed with emotion, a flush of red blooming across her frozen cheeks. She gritted her teeth and pulled out a charcoal pencil with trembling hands, her eyes burning exceptionally bright.

"Commander Soren, there isn't a scholar in this world who would willingly miss a grand ambush that borders on military art!"

"Please, give the order! My pen simply cannot wait!"

Soren smiled faintly, before the expression vanished in an instant. He turned back to overlook the battlefield, his body erupting with an awe-inspiring, boiling killing intent.

"All forces, hear my command! Beat the living hell out of them!"

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