He turned away from the drilling field and made his way back toward the secondary assembly rings near the southern area, where the elite mobility assets of the Veynar tribe were currently being marshaled for the impending raids.

When he entered the stone-walled courtyard of the lower tier, the atmosphere shifted from the raw, heavy grinding of the infantry to a sharp, electric tension. The air was dead silent, save for the occasional, dry rattle of short-bow quivers and the soft hissed whispers of scouts checking the bindings of their leather footwear.

Warchief Veylara and Lion Commander Thauren were already present, standing on a raised wooden platform overlooking the gathered strike force.

Gathered before them were the hundreds of elite warriors of the Vanguard.

It was a striking display of tribal power. Almost every single individual in the courtyard was a high-tier Layer 2 speed-oriented spirit holder.

Their physical forms somehow reflected their internal beasts; some had elongated, prehensile fingers characteristic of Shadow-Claws, others possessed the twitching, hyper-reactive calf muscles of Wind-Leopards, and a few had the subtle, iridescent sheen of Swift-Striking Serpents rippling beneath their caked camouflage paint.

Leading the columns at the front were three towering figures... the Layer 3 sub-commanders whose internal cores radiated a dense, suffocating pressure that kept the surrounding air perfectly still.

Seeing them, he wasn’t surprised, as he knew that were more layer 3 guarding around, it’s just it’s very difficult to advance from layer 3 to layer 4, layer 4 is true chasm, and in this whole region there numbers can be counted on one hand, and each and every one of them is a pillar of their tribe and won’t move easily.

The moment Sol’s massive, black-armored form stepped through the stone archway, a sub-conscious ripple passed through the crowd of elites. The low, grumbling chatter of the elders died down into a sudden, expectant silence.

Head after head turned to track his approach, their gazes automatically falling onto the dark, oily sheen of his newly strapped Rockhorn armor and the faint sapphire pulse radiating from the hilt at his left hip.

Without anyone openly stating it, the political and military dynamic within the Veynar tribe’s leadership had completely warped over the last few hours

. His casual display of absolute physical dominance in the sparring pits, combined with the cold, unyielding tactical logic of the inverted wedge and the hit-and-run strategy he had brought to the table, had subtly elevated his status to something bordering on mythic.

He wasn’t just a powerful stray guest or an outsider playing around with the warriors line anymore; he had become akin to a frontline general.

The battle hardened, scar-faced commanders looked at him with an unconscious deference. These weren’t green boys; these were the cold-blooded veterans who spent months surviving the deepest, most hostile peripheries of the Great Orrath. Yet, as they looked at Sol, their heads bowed slightly, their bodies shifted, automatically parting the dense crowd to give him a completely clear, unobstructed path straight to the front. They were waiting to see his reaction to their layout.

Sol ignored the intense staring, walking straight to the Chief and others.

"The preparations are done, Sol," Thauren rumbled, as he stepped forward, laying a thick piece of dried bark covered in freshly carved names onto the table. "Just as you demanded, we stripped the main vanguard defense lines of our best mobility assets.

We pulled every single high-tier Layer 2 warrior who carries a speed-oriented or agility-based spirit trait. We’ve got Wind-Leopards, Shadow-Claws, and Swift-Striking Serpents. No heavy bone-shields, no long-spears. Just light bone-daggers, short-bows, and maximum speed."

Sol scanned the names, his gaze sweeping over the one hundred and eighty elites. His mind, completely detached from the emotional weight of the tribe’s survival, was looking at them through the cold lens of an experienced tactician. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

"We even assigned three of our elite Layer 3 sub-commanders to lead the primary vanguard segments of the squads," Thauren continued, hitting his gold-scaled chest plate with his forearm. "They will act as the heavy wedge, ensuring that if the enemy tries to establish any localized perimeter blocks, our units can burst straight through their lines without losing their running momentum."

Sol looked up, his eyes locking onto the giant general. "How many fast-attack warriors do we have in total for the raids?"

"Exactly one hundred and eighty," Warchief Veylara replied, her eyes burning with a cold, calculating light as she looked at him. "The absolute elite of our hunting lines.

Sol looked back down at the bark ledger, his eyebrows narrowing slightly as he analyzed the grouping. "One hundred and eighty is a solid number, but four large squads are too clumsy for the ambush. If you send forty-five warriors marching together through the swamp roots, they’ll make too much noise.

The Zerith stalkers have enhanced sensory pathways. They’ll spot a large squad miles before you hit their tents, pull back into their main lines, and our surprise is dead. We need to divide them further."

He picked up a piece of charcoal from the edge of the makeshift table, using his thumb to cleanly split the four original tactical markers into nine smaller circles, scattering them evenly around the periphery of the valley.

"We will divide the hundred and eighty into exactly nine teams of twenty warriors each," Sol commanded, his voice sharp and unrefined, yet holding an icy, unquestioned authority that completely dominated the room.

"Each team will have a designated Layer 2 speed leader and two scouts with high-tier scent-masking abilities. We will move them in a synchronized matrix formation.... a rotating wheel."

He tapped the small charcoal circles in a precise, clockwise sequence, explaining the mechanical flow of the formation. "Teams One through Three will launch the first strike on the northern swamp outposts.

\The exact second they draw blood, set the supply tents on fire, and cut the throats of the lookouts, they don’t linger to fight a drawn-out battle. They vanish into the deep ravines.

Meanwhile, teams Four through Six will immediately slam into their exposed eastern flanks, targeting their primary supply handlers and beast-tenders."