224：Slaughtering the Apex Predators
At the Captain's command.
Ten colossal Wyverns violently tucked their leathery wings. Relying on their terrifying physical weight and extreme terminal velocity, they kicked up sharp, deafening sonic booms, launching their first dive-bombing run from the high altitudes straight toward the core structures of Greywater Village!
"One hundred meters! Eighty meters! Fifty meters!"
"Taste the wrath of the skies!"
The Orc riders laughed maniacally. They violently yanked their release ropes, unhooking the heavy payload nets from beneath the Wyverns' claws.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Riding the terrifying kinetic momentum generated by the dive, dozens of massive boulders—each weighing over a hundred pounds—and thick, solid steel spikes rained down upon Greywater Village in a dense, apocalyptic barrage!
A direct hit obliterated one of the moisture-proof stilted longhouses. With an agonizing CRACK, the thick, load-bearing wooden pillars—capable of supporting tons of weight—snapped like mere twigs. The entire roof was smashed into splinters, the massive shockwave blasting wood chips and thatch dozens of meters into the air.
Immediately after, two-meter-long solid iron spikes violently impaled the wide village thoroughfares. They pierced straight through the hard bluestone flagstones, sinking deep into the earth and causing the ground to violently tremble.
Several wooden sheds used for storing supplies were vaporized into flat rubble in the very first volley.
Dust, debris, and wood splinters choked the sky above the village. The destructive power was absolute. The arrogance of the Orc Wyvern riders had reached its absolute zenith.
"Beautiful! Pull up for another pass! Reduce every last shack down there to splinters!" the Orc Captain roared, intoxicated by the slaughter.
Yet, standing in the shadows of a hardened bunker, Soren faced the devastated village with zero trace of panic. Instead, his face settled into a mask of absolute, icy calm.
He hadn't just pre-warned the village of the crisis; he had prepared a lethal slaughter-zone for these high-altitude prey long in advance.
"Did you truly believe altitude granted you absolute impunity?"
Soren activated his [Eagle-Eye Perception], immediately turning to the messenger beside him and issuing a rapid-fire military command. The order was instantly relayed to the northern high ground:
"Northern defensive battery! Anti-air division! Open fire!"
On the previously empty northern high ground, the command took effect instantaneously.
Swish!
Several goblins dashed out of concealment, ripping away camouflage netting. Six heavy siege ballistas—previously captured from the Orcs—suddenly revealed their monstrous, mechanical glory to the world.
Having been personally modified by the Hobgoblin Master Artisan, Luger, these massive war machines now boasted full 360-degree horizontal rotation and a steep 70-degree vertical elevation.
They were true, bona fide anti-air batteries!
CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!
The heavy winches screamed as the arm-thick bowstrings were cranked to their absolute, groaning limits.
"Target locked! Elevation sixty-five degrees! Fire!" the veteran operating the lead ballista roared, ruthlessly slamming his fist down onto the firing trigger.
THOOM! THOOM! THOOM!
Six deafening, explosive cracks ripped through the sky, sounding as if the very air was being torn in half.
Relying on a terrifying kinetic momentum capable of shattering fortress gates, six incredibly thick, armor-piercing heavy bolts shot upward like reverse meteors, violently piercing the firmament!
High above, the Orc riders who had been maniacally laughing mere seconds ago suddenly heard a rapid succession of shrill sonic booms screaming up from below.
Before the Orcs could even look down to identify the threat...
SHLUCK!
With absolute, overwhelming destructive force, a thick armor-piercing bolt instantly penetrated the heavy iron barding on the belly of the lead Wyvern.
That armor, which was more than thick enough to easily shrug off volleys from standard longbows, was torn apart like wet paper in the face of a point-blank, high-elevation heavy ballista strike.
Maintaining its unabated velocity, the formidable bolt didn't just rip through the Wyvern's flesh—it flawlessly skewed straight up through the Orc rider's chest!
"Gaaah—!"
The burly Orc didn't even have time to finish his scream. His entire upper torso was obliterated by the horrifying kinetic impact, exploding into a grotesque shower of blood and shredded internal organs that painted the sky in a mist of red.
Deprived of its master's control and suffering catastrophic trauma, the critically wounded Wyvern let out an agonized, blood-curdling shriek.
It violently thrashed and rolled in mid-air. Its massive body completely lost aerodynamic balance, its tucked wings refusing to open. With a deafening crash, the multi-ton monstrosity plummeted from fifty meters up, slamming directly into the muddy swamp just outside the village, its neck snapping with a sickening crunch. It died on impact.
On the other side of the formation, the second heavy ballista yielded equally horrifying results.
A solid steel, armor-piercing bolt flawlessly predicted the glide path of another Wyvern.
CRACK!
Accompanied by the explosive sound of shattering bone, the massive bolt pierced directly through the Wyvern's lower jaw, punching straight through its hardened skull and blasting out the top of its head in a geyser of brain matter.
The Wyvern's eyes instantly lost focus. It died instantly in mid-air, unable to emit even a whimper.
Its massive, lifeless corpse, carrying the utterly terrified rider still strapped to its back, plummeted straight down into the eastern sulfurous volcanic crater, disappearing into the rolling clouds of superheated white smoke.
A single volley.
A single, fleeting exchange.
Two of the Blood Province's priceless, elite Wyvern bombers were instantly wiped from the sky!
The explosive showers of blood and the plummeting corpses delivered an unprecedented shock to the Orcs, severely shattering the morale of the remaining eight Wyvern riders.
The surviving Orcs were plunged into absolute disbelief and profound confusion.
How was this possible?!
"What kind of anti-air weaponry is that?! Why are siege engines firing at the damn sky?!"
"Pull up! Pull up now! Those are human heavy ballistas! We're right in their kill-zone!"
Watching his two comrades be reduced to mangled meat before his very eyes, the Orc Captain's arrogance evaporated, instantly replaced by an endless, freezing terror.
They finally realized the brutal truth: the dilapidated-looking Greywater Village below wasn't some defenseless human settlement. It was a heavily fortified death-trap bristling with ultra-long-range, lethally armor-piercing anti-air weaponry!
"Do not fly low! Gain altitude! Get back into the cloud layer!"
The remaining eight Wyverns let out panic-stricken shrieks, their riders frantically hauling back on the reins.
The Wyverns beat their wings with desperate frenzy, abandoning their dive-bombing run entirely. Filled with sheer panic, they scrambled frantically to climb above the one-hundred-and-fifty-meter mark, desperate to escape the lethal surface-to-air threat.
Standing in the shadows of the square below, Soren kept his eyes locked on the sky.
"Trying to retreat to high altitude and use visual blind spots to regroup?" Soren keenly deduced the Wyvern formation's intent.
As a commander versed in modern tactical doctrines, he knew perfectly well that while heavy ballistas possessed horrifying armor-piercing capabilities, their reload times were abysmally slow. Furthermore, once the enemy climbed past the one-hundred-meter safety threshold, the ballistas' accuracy would plummet.
He had to capitalize on this fleeting window of opportunity to fortify his anti-air batteries.
Now that the enemy was aware of the ballistas' existence, they would undoubtedly designate them as the absolute highest-priority targets for destruction in the second wave.
"Vanguard elites! Deploy!" Soren roared.
CLANK-CLANK-CLANK!
Seventy heavy vanguard elites, freshly equipped with their [Black Steel Full-Plate Armor], surged aggressively from their positions.
Wielding two-and-a-half-meter-long armor-piercing heavy halberds, their fine-steel war-boots stomped through the mud, generating a highly oppressive, mechanical marching rhythm.
"Move to the northern high ground! Form a circular defensive perimeter around the six ballistas!"
Soren issued his commands with absolute, cold calculation, deploying the territory's most heavily armored unit to protect the core strategic assets.
Simultaneously, he turned his head to glare at Commander Ilya and the others peering out from their bunkers, issuing a severe warning:
"Ilya! Ein! All second-line Magic Ranger and Longbow battalions are to maintain absolute radio silence and stay concealed! No one plays the hero! No one fires without my explicit signal!"
"But My Lord, we're getting bombed to pieces down here..." Master Marksman Ein gritted his teeth, the veins on the back of his hands bulging.
"Follow orders! Conventional arrows and Wind Blades won't even scratch Wyvern armor at a hundred meters! Revealing your positions now will only invite targeted boulder suppression from above! Stay hidden!"
Soren ruthlessly completely shut down his subordinates' impulsive thirst for battle.
He had to keep his secondary firepower completely hidden in the dark, waiting for the absolute perfect kill-window.
High in the sky.
The severely traumatized Orc Wyvern formation did not choose to turn tail and flee.
These aerial elites of the Blood Province, having swallowed their initial panic, managed to restabilize their ranks two hundred meters up, just below the cloud layer. They circled warily, the eight massive Wyverns forming a mutually supporting overwatch formation.
Freezing high-altitude winds whipped against the Orc Captain's face.
Looking down at the six heavy ballistas—now heavily shielded by a dense ring of Black Steel-armored infantry—the Captain's face twisted with pure, venomous hatred.
"We can't just tuck our tails and run. If we report back that we were chased off by a few ballistas, Warchief Blackstone will flay us alive..."
After a brief, hurried exchange of hand signals, the Orc riders reached a grim consensus.
They would no longer attempt blind, mass-formation dive-bombs.
Instead, they would leverage their absolute air superiority. Utilizing the Wyverns' ability to weave in and out of the cloud cover, they prepared to organize a far more meticulous, incredibly vicious second wave of high-altitude retaliatory strikes.
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