37：A Worthy Trade

"Because they weren't looking for you."

Soren gazed into the distant morning mist."They were looking for me. You just happened to be in the path of their purge."

Galahad froze.

Soren didn't need to elaborate. The physical corpse of the High Priest lying right there told the whole story: this was a targeted, surgical strike.

A profound chill crept up the back of Galahad’s neck.

Warchief Blackstone, the absolute ruler of this swamp, had actually issued an ultimate kill order against the young Crimson Moon Knights captain standing before him. Just what kind of devastating blow had this man dealt to the Blackstone tribe to incur such an extreme level of retaliation?

Slowly, Galahad let out a long, shuddering breath of cold air.

Clenching his fist, he slammed it heavily against his breastplate, producing the crisp, ringing clang of steel. There was no resentment for being caught in the crossfire, nor any bitterness at suffering unjust losses.

"Fifty of my infantrymen died, " he stated."But if those monsters had marched straight through, not only would you have lacked the advance warning to set up an ambush in these shallows, but they would have also trampled every refugee settlement in their path. The casualties would have numbered in the thousands."

He lifted his head, meeting Soren’s gaze directly.

"I am the commander of Ironwood Keep. I protect the humans in the Misty Swamp. Taking this blow for you. . . it was a worthy trade."

Galahad took a half-step back, stomped his right foot firmly into the mud, and delivered a flawless, textbook Silvermoon Royal Knight sword-salute.

"Furthermore, you strangled their leader here and slew two Sons of Titan, " Galahad continued."First Strike Battalion of the Crimson Moon, you have proven yourselves through brilliant tactics and terrifying martial prowess. You have avenged the fallen souls of my keep."

Soren studied the commander before him.

The very first survival skill a special forces operative learned on the battlefield was how to quickly distinguish the politicians from the brothers-in-arms—the ones you could safely entrust your back to.

Galahad was the latter.

Soren extended his right hand.

"Thirty kilometers northeast of here, there's a village situated in a bottleneck valley. It's called Ashwater Village. There are two watchtowers at the entrance, you can't miss it, " Soren said."If you ever need military supplies or want to trade intelligence, send a light cavalryman to find me."

Galahad paused for a moment, then unhesitatingly stripped off his iron gauntlet. Baring his hand, he gripped Soren's palm firmly.

"Ironwood Keep, twenty kilometers south of the Sunken Bone Shallows. You and your men are welcome there anytime!"

The morning light tore through the viscous mist, signaling the time to part ways.

Soren raised his right hand, pressed two fingers together, and gestured slightly forward. The sixty-five veterans waiting in the shallow puddles immediately shouldered their two-and-a-half-meter armor-piercing heavy halberds, keeping them perfectly leveled.

They didn't fall into formation to salute, nor did they cast a second glance at the Silvermoon knights standing nearby. With eerily silent footsteps, they simply followed Soren, vanishing into the dense reeds of the swamp.

There were no splashes of water. There was no clinking of armor or weapons.

Galahad stood in the muddy water, watching the silhouettes of those men—covered head-to-toe in black muck—melt away into the landscape.

Retracting his gaze, he stepped into his stirrup and vaulted onto his warhorse.

"Return to base."

The thirty swordsmen fell in behind his horse, trudging through the muck, their boots sinking deep with every step as they marched back toward Ironwood Keep. The loud, squelching sounds of horse hooves and heavy boots pulling free from the mud stood in stark, jarring contrast to the ghostly silence of the sixty-five-man squad that had just departed.

Ironwood Keep.

The drawbridge was lowered.

Galahad dismounted his warhorse. He ignored the squire who hurried over to take the reins, and he deliberately avoided looking at the plaza, where the corpses of his infantrymen were being loaded onto carts.

He strode briskly down the corridor, descending to the very bottom level of the main tower. Drawing the dagger from his waist, Galahad sliced away the damp-proof vines clinging to the wall, revealing a heavy, iron-bound hidden door. He pushed it open.

The underground cellar was windowless. In its exact center sat a stone pedestal, its surface engraved with several dim mithril runes.

Galahad produced a magical crystal and slotted it into a groove at the pedestal's edge. He pressed both hands flat against the stone surface.

Hum.

The crystal instantly shattered into fine dust. The mithril circuitry drank in the unleashed mana, emitting a pale, ghostly halo. The light wove itself together in mid-air, projecting a translucent, half-length hologram.

The projection was of an elderly man. He was draped in a heavy, gray woolen overcoat. His eye sockets were deeply sunken, and his hair was as brittle as dry straw, yet his piercing gaze instantly locked onto Galahad’s face.

Rodman.

The former Supreme Commander of the Silvermoon Kingdom's military forces. He was also the secret benefactor who had supported Galahad in defying the Royal Capital's edicts to lead troops deep into the Misty Swamp to construct this very fortress.

"You have blood on your face, and your armor is dented, " Rodman’s raspy voice echoed from the array."Is the keep under siege?"

"No, My Lord, " Galahad replied, swallowing hard to moisten his dry throat."We fought an encounter battle. Ten Blackstone elites—the greenskins call them 'Sons of Titan'. They wore no armor, activated a [Rock Shield], and dismantled the keep's main gates with their bare hands."

"What were your casualties?" Rodman frowned.

"The Second Infantry Battalion engaged them. We opened with a heavy spear-and-shield wall, attempting a three-pronged encirclement. The formation was torn to shreds in an instant." Galahad reported grimly."Fifty-one dead. Twelve severely wounded. We failed to secure a single enemy corpse."

A deathly silence fell over the cellar.

Through the array, Rodman could be seen lifting a steaming teacup from his desk. He paused mid-motion.

Bang.

He slammed the teacup back down onto the wood.

"Galahad, " Rodman sighed, his voice dripping with profound disappointment."Your time at the Royal Military Academy has completely calcified your brain."

"The enemy wore no armor and smashed open a reinforced gate while relying on a magical barrier. That clearly indicates a shock-assault unit operating on raw brute force and high-tier magical protection, likely with an innate berserk trait!" The old commander’s words came like rapid-fire."Encountering an unknown monstrous melee threat, and you actually ordered heavy spear-and-shield infantry into a three-pronged encirclement? That’s not a tactic, that’s serving meat on a chopping block!"

"The instructors at the Great Wall Defense Line taught you that heavy infantry counters a light infantry charge—but that logic only applies when fighting humans! Their sheer mass and muscle density far exceed that of a normal man. Your heavy spears couldn't pierce their shields, and the sheer reactionary force alone would snap your ashwood spear shafts like twigs!"

"The tight grouping of an infantry phalanx just ensures that when one man gets tossed into the air, he crushes the bones of four others on his way down! In that situation, you should have cast Mire to create distance and used heavy crossbows to test the upper limits of their magical defenses! You don't throw away elite soldiers' lives as fodder!"

Galahad lowered his head in shame.

Rodman closed his eyes."You failed in your duty as a commander, Galahad. Those fifty men died because of your rigid adherence to textbook tactics."

"I admit my tactical error, My Lord." Galahad raised his head, meeting the faint, spectral glow of the array."However. . . two of those ten monsters are dead. The High Shadow Priest leading them also had his physical vessel slain, left to rot in a shallow pool."

Rodman’s eyes snapped open. He leaned in closer to the projection."You threw your reserves at them to whittle them down?"

"No. It wasn't the men of Ironwood Keep. The monsters were ambushed during their retreat." As Galahad spoke, he recalled the shocking scene that had greeted him at the shallows."The Crimson Moon Knights, Captain of the First Strike Battalion, Soren."

"Sixty-five light infantrymen wearing nothing but leather armor, wielding two-and-a-half-meter armor-piercing halberds. They collided head-on with that elite monster squad in a flooded marsh known as the Sunken Bone Shallows."

The look in Rodman’s eyes shifted completely.

"A flooded marsh? Was there an elevation advantage? Rocky terrain? Forest cover?" the old commander pressed.

Galahad shook his head."None. It’s an endless flatland. The water is knee-deep, and beneath it is pure, rotting mud."

"There wasn't so much as a tree stump to block the line of sight. They clamped hollow reeds in their mouths for air, coated their entire bodies in swamp muck, and buried themselves beneath the water, completely evading the High Shadow Priest’s magical detection radius."

Galahad’s voice deepened with profound emphasis."And this sixty-five-man squad. . . suffered zero casualties."

On the other side of the array, the deep wrinkles on Rodman’s face went utterly taut. The old commander shot up from his chair, causing the magical projection to violently flicker and distort for a moment.

"Zero casualties?!"

"Are you absolutely certain the corpses on the ground were Sons of Titan?!"

Rodman leaned heavily, planting both hands on the edge of his desk.

The generals on the current frontlines had never personally seen a Son of Titan, but he knew the lore. They were the absolute trump cards of the Orcs, incredibly arduous to produce. Creating one required injecting highly diluted Titan blood into a host's veins and using dark magic to completely excise their sense of pain. They were monstrous biological weapons born solely for slaughter.

Let alone fighting a few dozen lightly armored veterans—if someone had managed to airdrop those ten monsters directly into the Silvermoon Royal Capital, the Silvermoon King and his cabinet ministers would have been so terrified they'd throw the entire Royal Guard at them overnight just to plug the gap with bodies.

Yet, this supreme ace unit—a unit so valuable that the loss of even a single member would cause Warchief Blackstone immense grief—had bypassed major strategic targets to assault the thoroughly insignificant Ironwood Keep hidden within the Misty Swamp. Why?

Inside Rodman’s mind, fragmented pieces of intelligence began to rapidly stitch themselves together.

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