Another World: Building an Empire from Zero

"Since Soren has escalated into a paramount, existential threat, to guarantee the absolute eradication of him and that damned village in a single strike, we absolutely cannot rely on a single plan!"

Warchief Blackstone abruptly turned around. With a massive sweep of his hand, he issued three meticulously comprehensive, absolutely lethal operational plans to the Ironblood Overlord:

"Plan One: Heavy Siege and Eradication!"

"Massing the conventional legions is indeed slow, but pass down my command! From this day forth, all warbands on the frontline numbering over a thousand men are to immediately cease all meaningless skirmishes! They are to execute a full-scale tactical retreat and mass their forces! Stockpile anti-acid potions and poison-repelling herbs!"

"Even if it takes three months! Even if we have to pile corpses into mountains and bleed rivers of blood, the main Orc army must execute an absolutely airtight, full-scale encirclement of Greywater Village! I will trap him and slowly starve him to death!"

"Plan Two: The espionage and assassination you just proposed!"

The Warchief locked eyes with the Overlord. "This must be executed flawlessly."

"Go and handpick the most insidious, undetectable human traitors! I do not care how much gold you spend. I want Soren's internal defensive lines to completely and utterly collapse!"

Just as the Overlord nodded to accept the orders...

Thump... Thump...

From the absolute lowest depths of the hall's floorstones—from the cracks leading directly to the subterranean death-dungeons of Bloodfang Fortress—faint, blood-curdling screams echoed. Accompanying them was the sickening, wet squelch of massive chunks of meat being violently torn apart and stitched together.

Hearing that sound, even the battle-hardened Ironblood Overlord couldn't suppress a violent shudder. "Warchief... that madman in the basement..."

"That is the third plan prepared for Soren. It is our most brutal, absolute killing stroke: Special Operations Assault!"

Warchief Blackstone revealed a terrifying, blood-chilling sneer.

The century-old Shadow Priest, Zagar.

The ancient monster who had been intercepted by Soren midway through his assassination run against Grand Duke Valentine. Not only were his Sons of Titan slaughtered, but Zagar's very soul core had been catastrophically damaged by Soren's pure-silver magical arrow.

Upon returning in defeat, the deeply humiliated Priest had attempted to slit his own throat in this very hall, desperate to wash away a century's worth of unprecedented disgrace. It was the Warchief who had personally stayed his blade, granting him one final chance at vengeance.

"Zagar has gone completely mad. Or rather, pure, unadulterated hatred has entirely obliterated his already twisted sanity."

"He swore a blood-oath of death. Flattening Greywater Village is now his sole, maniacal obsession."

"Right now, apart from forcefully reconstructing the five surviving, critically wounded Sons of Titan, he is toiling day and night in the death-dungeon, conducting highly vile alchemical experiments!"

The Warchief lowered his voice, his tone laced with a tremor of dread that even he couldn't hide:

"That old lunatic has invoked a taboo, forbidden secret art that the Blood Province sealed away three hundred years ago."

"He ordered men to scour the frontline mass graves, exhuming the corpses of the most physically imposing, elite Orc commanders who fell in battle!"

"He is currently using iron wire infused with shadow mana to forcefully stitch rotting chunks of flesh, shattered bones, and even the internal organs of magical beasts together! Then, he bathes and marinates the abominations in the fresh blood of the living!"

The Overlord sucked in a sharp breath of cold air.

The Warchief coldly announced the birth of this secret vanguard:

"Zagar has forged an unprecedented unit: The [Abomination Stitch-Fiend Battalion]!"

"These monsters possess absolutely zero pain receptors. They do not bleed. They do not fear Soren’s laughable poisoned spikes or barricades! As long as their heads aren't completely pulverized, their monstrously powerful, stitched arms will physically tear apart any heavy armor defensive line!"

"Once this batch of Fiends reaches maturity, Zagar will personally lead them. Under the cover of night, synchronized with the assassination and the siege, he will launch a decapitation strike directly against Greywater Village's command post! He will physically rip Soren's soul from his body and subject it to the most agonizing torture imaginable!"

A three-pronged apocalypse.

Such a horrifyingly meticulous, absolute eradication plan was originally the highest-tier protocol reserved by the Orc Alliance for besieging human royal capitals!

Yet today, it was being deployed in its entirety against a single, remote swamp village!

Even after finalizing all of this, Warchief Blackstone did not look relieved.

He slowly walked back to his throne, resting his chin on his steepled fingers, an indescribable anxiety painting his face.

"We have no choice but to do this..." the Warchief's voice echoed hollowly through the hall. "Overlord, you have absolutely no idea just how catastrophically the situation in the outside world has deteriorated."

The Warchief raised his head, looking at the massive map at the end of the hall that spanned the entire continent.

He took a deep breath, enunciating the incredibly thorny truth word by agonizing word:

"The name 'Soren' has, from this day forth, violently shaken the entire world!"

Following a series of unbelievable annihilation campaigns, and with the heads of prominent Orc generals rolling into the mud one after another, the sheer prestige of "Soren" and "Greywater Village" had already bypassed the toxic miasma of the Misty Swamp, spreading rapidly across the core factions of the entire continent!

"A few days ago, when the Governor of the Blood Province learned his beloved blood-nephew Mogg was decapitated in a canyon, his apocalyptic fury nearly robbed him of his sanity!"

The Warchief sneered as he relayed the intelligence reports:

"The Governor executed over a dozen attendants on the spot. He issued the absolute highest-tier kill warrant."

"Soren's portrait is currently plastered across the walls of every single Orc fortress in the Blood Province! He has become our eternal, mortal nemesis!"

"But that isn't the most terrifying part. The most terrifying part is the reaction from the human factions!"

"Overlord, can you even fathom it?"

The Warchief's words were heavy with profound shock.

"Set aside those idiotic nobles of the Silvermoon Kingdom. Even the inviolable Holy Halycon Empire... His Imperial Majesty, the supreme ruler of the world who commands legions of millions of lions, was actually alarmed by the sudden rise of this previously unknown force!"

The Overlord stumbled half a step backward, his scalp tingling with numbness.

The Emperor of Halycon?

The supreme authority whose slightest anger could cause the entire southern continent to convulse violently?!

"According to top-secret magical transmissions from our Succubus spies embedded in the Imperial Capital..."

The Warchief closed his eyes. It was as if he could vividly picture the human Emperor roaring with laughter within his resplendent golden palace:

"When the Halycon Emperor opened the battle report submitted by Grand Duke Valentine and learned that Soren, relying on a mere few hundred routed, ragtag soldiers, divided his forces to strike!"

"And that right under our very noses, utilizing penetration tactics, he annihilated two thousand fully armed Orc elites! Slain an Oracle, Young Master Mogg, and multiple high-ranking Orc officers! And finally, in a desperate situation, severely crippled the Shadow Priest Zagar, saving the life of the Empire's Supreme Commander!"

The Warchief's eyes snapped open, turning to quote the royal verdict that was destined to be recorded in the annals of history:

"That Emperor continuously marveled in front of his entire imperial court of civil and military officials, personally handing down a royal decree."

"He declared: 'Such a flawless combat record—a literal masterpiece of tactical micro-management—possesses a strategic value and pure kill-weight equivalent to a massive, full-scale theater war involving the main human legions and tens of thousands of heavy cavalry!'"

CRASH!

The weapon rack beside the Overlord was knocked over by his violently trembling body. Numerous iron weapons clattered to the floor, yet the noise couldn't mask the overwhelming horror surging in his heart.

By the Gods!

The Overlord roared internally, cold sweat completely soaking his chest.

He finally understood why the Warchief had laid out three completely psychotic, absolute execution plans.

This was no longer just about killing a tactical genius.

The name Soren, and this Greywater Village unit now viewed as a living legend by all factions, had already become the spiritual beacon for the entire human resistance against the Orcs!

As long as the smoke continued to rise from Greywater Village's hearths in the Misty Swamp... as long as Soren drew breath for a single day... the morale of humanity's rebellion against the Orcs would be endlessly galvanized!

"If we do not entirely erase him from existence..."

Warchief Blackstone stared into the howling, freezing night, his voice exceptionally sinister:

"Soren will inevitably become the... Destroyer of the Orc Alliance's absolute hegemony!"

Freezing mist rolled across the outskirts of the Misty Swamp. Several molting carrion crows let out harsh, grating caws from the branches of dead trees.

Accompanied by the urgent, rapid clatter of hooves, muddy water splashed in all directions.

Several light cavalry scouts, clad in the standard-issue armor of the Silvermoon Kingdom, violently hauled back on their reins just outside the chevaux de frise barricades on the southern perimeter of Greywater Village. The warhorses let out long whinnies, nervously pacing in place.

"Halt! You are entering the territory of Greywater Village!"

From behind the reinforced bunkers, several soldiers of the second-line battalion raised their triple-burst repeating hand-crossbows, aiming vigilantly at the arrivals.

The lead scout captain dismounted. Even though he represented the official, regular frontline of the Kingdom, at this moment, he absolutely did not dare display a single ounce of arrogance.

His gaze moved past the razor-sharp barricades, landing on the rows of towering, reinforced moisture-proof stilted cabins near the dormant volcano... and the faintly visible, colossal skeletal remains of Wyverns lying in the mud.

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/cw/Smiling123