251：The One-Sided Slaughter Begins

Soren’s longsword slashed down!

In the next heartbeat, a blistering assault erupted from the rear of the Orc army!

"Spirits of the wind, heed my call!"

From the vantage point on the left flank, the half-elf commander, Ilya, locked her emerald eyes onto the enemy. Behind her, one hundred and thirty magical rangers released their bowstrings in perfect unison.

The instant the arrows left the bows, they were engulfed in pure wind mana, morphing into spiraling cyan vortexes mid-flight! The wind-blade enchantments bestowed terrifying cutting power upon the projectiles.

Squelch! Squelch!

As the cyan streaks plunged into the dense rear ranks of the Orc formation, black iron armor was shredded like wet paper! The violent wind blades didn't just pierce the Orcs' chests—they detonated inside them, mincing their internal organs and erupting into a horrific rain of blood and gore!

Meanwhile, on the high ground to the right, the sharpshooter Ein stood with a face as cold as frost.

"Elevation forty-five degrees! Volley!"

Fifty-one imperial military longbows unleashed a bone-chilling, collective twang.

Equipped with triangular armor-piercing heavy heads, the solid shafts rode the terrain’s advantage, plummeting directly into the enemy ranks. These arrows required no magic. Driven by pure kinetic energy and vicious design, they punched straight through the crowns of the bewildered Orcs, nailing them firmly to the permafrost.

Simultaneously...

"Scatter! Circle them! Run those Greenskin bastards ragged!"

Buck unleashed a wild war cry. The ninety-three wolf riders dispersed their formation, seamlessly weaving in and out along the edges of the Orc lines.

Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!

Raising their custom triple-burst hand crossbows, the cavalry unleashed a hailstorm of bolts into the Orcs.

Soren knew full well that while the triple-burst hand crossbows boasted a rapid rate of fire, their lethal range was lacking. At this distance, they could hardly inflict fatal damage on heavily armored Orcs.

But killing wasn't the point!

The greatest advantage of wolf cavalry lies in their mobility and mopping up the battlefield in the endgame. Right now, their sole mission is harassment! Soren’s gaze remained locked dead ahead.

Just as expected, the dense volley of bolts pelted the Orcs' helmets and backs with deafening clattering. It wasn’t lethal, but it generated absolute chaos and maddening noise!

One second ago, the five-thousand-strong Orc army was frantically scaling the mountain pass. The next, they were plunged into a devastating pincer attack!

In the front, Talon’s suicidal barbarians were defending with their lives. In the rear, they were being senselessly slaughtered by a sky full of wind blades, heavy arrows, and crossbow bolts!

"Curse them! It’s an ambush! We’ve been flanked!"

In the center of the formation, the Orc Commander, Noga, furiously cleaved a panicking deserter in two. His hideous face contorted with a mix of shock and boundless rage.

He couldn't fathom it. In the middle of this desolate mountain range, where the hell did such a heavily armed, elite human force come from?!

"Hold the line! No one steps back!"

Noga was, after all, a battle-hardened veteran. He rapidly scanned the chaotic battlefield.

That pass ahead might be crumbling, but those barbarians are fighting like demons. The terrain is a bottleneck—we can't break it anytime soon!

We can’t just stand here and die! We must break out! Tear their encirclement to pieces!

Noga’s frantic gaze swept the rear slopes. Quickly, his eyes locked onto the left-hand vantage point where Soren stood.

"Hah! Humans are foolish creatures after all!" Having found what he believed to be a lifeline, a bloodthirsty ecstasy spread across Noga's face.

A careful observation revealed that while the right flank and the center were raining death, the gentle slope on the left was guarded by a mere seventy-odd human soldiers, just standing there in silence!

What baffled him most was that these seventy men hadn't raised tower shields to form a testudo, nor did they wield three-meter-long pikes. They were just standing there, utterly exposed like sitting ducks!

"Barely seventy men, and not even a proper defensive formation! That's their weakest link!"

Raising his blood-drenched battleaxe, Noga screamed his orders until his voice cracked:

"Abandon the siege! Entire army, about-face! All Black Iron Infantry, with me! Full-scale assault on those seventy humans on the left! Trample them into the dirt! Carve us a bloody path out of here!"

Awoooo!

The thousands of Black Iron Orcs crammed on the mountainside, suffering a one-sided slaughter, suddenly saw a glimmer of salvation.

Eyes glowing ruby red with desperation, the dense horde surged. Waving their massive weapons, they launched an earth-shattering, do-or-die charge straight toward Soren’s position on the left flank!

"They're charging right at us!"

Behind the cover of the rocks, Lucia clapped her hands over her mouth in sheer terror. Watching thousands of muscle-bound monsters stampeding toward a pitifully thin line of seventy men pushed her anxiety to the absolute brink.

However, standing upon the highest vantage point, Soren watched Noga’s seemingly brilliant tactical maneuver and let out a cold, mocking sneer.

The weakest link?

Noga, that overly clever Greenskin bastard, had absolutely no idea.

Those seventy men standing perfectly still were no defensive gap. They were the absolute apex of Greywater Village's military might! Forged from the entire territory's resources, utilizing Troll Serum and the Black Steel Furnace, they were the most terrifyingly lethal infantry unit on the front line—the Black Steel Elites!

"Hold your damn ground!"

Soren growled low, his command rippling through the seventy elites via rapid hand signals.

Facing a thunderous Orc charge that caused the very earth to quake, the seventy men clad in heavy black steel armor didn’t so much as falter in their breathing. Unmoving as statues, they silently waited for the enemy to step into the killing zone.

One hundred paces...

Eighty paces...

Fifty paces...

"They're frozen in fear! Hack them to pieces!" Noga, leading the vanguard, roared with maniacal laughter that echoed through the night.

"Thirty paces! Now!" Soren suddenly unleashed a deafening roar: "Raise the heavy repeaters! Shoot them all to hell!"

Clack-clack-clack-clack!

A perfectly synchronized chorus of mechanical locks snapping into place exploded across the line. At the exact same second, the seventy frontline elites violently leveled their weapons—the terrifying, winch-drawn Heavy Repeating Crossbows!

They didn't even bother to aim. The wall of Orcs in front of them was simply too dense to miss.

"Loose!"

Thrum!

At a point-blank range of barely thirty paces, the seventy heavy repeating crossbows instantaneously erected an impenetrable wall of interlocking crossfire!

Thick, solid-steel quarrels—packing enough kinetic devastation to punch through city gates—slammed head-on into the charging Orc horde!

Squelch-BOOM!

"AAAAAGH!"

The dozens of Black Iron Orcs leading the vanguard didn't even have time to finish their agonizing screams.

Against the heavy repeaters, their formidable black iron armor was as fragile as wet paper! The massive steel bolts effortlessly shredded their breastplates, blasted through their muscular chests, and carried enough momentum to skewer the comrades standing directly behind them!

A few exceptionally massive Orcs were struck by three or four heavy bolts simultaneously at point-blank range. The sheer ballistic impact literally lifted their colossal frames off the ground, sending them flying backward through the air as their torsos violently ruptured in a shower of gore and viscera!

"Crank the winches! Do not stop! Fire! Fire!" the veteran squad leader bellowed hoarsely.

Creeeeak! Thrum!

Creeeeak! Thrum!

The true terror of the heavy repeaters was put on full, gruesome display. The unending, relentless deluge of firepower instantly reduced Noga’s proud breakout charge into a horrific, one-sided meat grinder!

Swaths of Orcs were mowed down like wheat, violently collapsing a mere ten paces away from the Black Steel Elite defensive line. Corpses piled into literal mounds, and a river of blood pooled rapidly into the snowdrifts, emitting thick clouds of crimson steam.

"No! What kind of witchcraft is this?! It’s impossible!"

Commander Noga yanked hard on his Warg's reins in abject terror, his face splattered with the fresh brain matter of his own lieutenant.

It finally dawned on him: he hadn't found a weak point. He had willingly led his entire army into an inescapable death trap!

Just as he opened his mouth to scream for a retreat—

Up on the vantage point, Soren’s body flared with a brilliant cyan aura of wind mana. Under his monstrous strength, the Windwhisper Bow groaned as it was drawn to its absolute breaking point.

[Eagle Eye Perception] activated!

Soren’s vision pierced straight through the blizzard and the thick mist of blood, locking dead onto Noga's terror-twisted face.

"Cut off the head, and the body dies. Your life is mine."

Soren gently opened his fingers.

SWISH!

A cyan comet, packed with wildly condensed wind mana, tore across the sky at speeds invisible to the naked eye.

Squelch!

The enchanted heavy arrow punched flawlessly straight through Noga's throat!

The volatile wind mana detonated inside his windpipe, literally shredding half of his neck into bloody minced meat! The once-arrogant Orc Commander didn't even have the chance to gargle a final curse. He tumbled off his Warg and crashed into the dirt, his eyes wide open in the ultimate, unyielding shock of death.

With their commander dead, any remaining semblance of the breakout charge shattered instantly beneath the devastating firepower of the heavy repeaters.

The surviving Orcs utterly lost their will to fight. Screaming in terror, they scattered like headless flies in the valley, only to be systematically picked off, collapsing one after another beneath the lethal crossfire of the magical rangers and the longbowmen.

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