Volume 5: The Elegant Tea Party (Remastered) Chapter 8: The Dangerous Forest (4)
With the addition of the Hammer Dwarves, the Expeditionary Force finally has an efficient and reliable Scout. Prior to this, the Scouts for the Expeditionary Force were mostly Half-Elf archers under Lana, and Raphael admitted that they were good soldiers and good at fighting in the forest, but unfortunately, they were not qualified scouts.
Despite the peculiar and laughable customs of the long-eared men, such as wearing accessories woven from various plants or applying various botanical fragrances to themselves, the half-elves still maintained a strange arrogance, and they were unwilling to write detailed reports like ordinary soldiers, and even refused to stay in one place for more than two hours. From this point of view, the half-elf, like the elf, is full of the spirit of pursuing freedom.
Fortunately, the dwarven griffin knights that Kudran had brought with him were not so delicate. The favorite sport of these hundred-year-old dwarves was to soar through the mountains of Hinterland on griffins, and sometimes this behavior was often scolded and punished by their elders, most commonly forbidding them to drink. And now, they feel that this time as a scout has been the best time of their lives. They can ride griffons through the skies and return with compliments and a bottle of wine from the kingdom of Ashwood. If anyone else finds something of value, he'll also get a delicious roast of meat, plus a small barrel of Ironforge's specialty Thunder Ale.
Stimulated by both interest and materialism, in less than two days, Raphael received a lot of valuable information.
"According to the results of the dwarves' reconnaissance, Archmage Arugao is gathering the werewolves throughout the Silver Pine Forest to prepare to surround Shadowfang Castle." Raphael handed a piece of information to Pierre, "Kudran personally went to Shadowfang Castle to scout, and he told me that it was full of purple-skinned wolf cubs, and that Snowfury was almost wounded by a dense stream of Shadow Arrows. ”
"It's unbelievable! Those werewolves are really ready to fight us in Shadowfang Castle! Pierre had to admit that he had misjudged, "I'll let my best thieves go to Shadowfang Castle to see what bad ideas those bastards are up to." ”
Raphael nodded: "Thank you very much!" In addition to that, I have good news for you. Lord Tibste, with five hundred high-ranking Light Knights, has joined the Fourth Legion. ”
"Great!" For a long time, the biggest problem that plagued the Nanhai Town Expeditionary Force was the lack of high-end forces, and this high-end strength did not refer to heroic-level powerhouses, but those sixth-order and seventh-order troops. During the entire defense of Nanhai Town, the highest rank in the expeditionary force was only a fifth-order priest, and the soldiers who could go to the front line to fight those werewolves would not even exceed the fourth-order, which made the expeditionary force have been suppressed by werewolves in terms of the quality of soldiers, resulting in high casualties.
Now, with a full five hundred sixth-order Light Knights joining, the expeditionary force's shortcomings in high-level soldiers have been greatly strengthened, and the next battle to attack Shadowfang Castle will be easier.
However, Pierre also thought of a question: "Now that His Excellency Tibest has arrived, will you continue to command the expeditionary force?" ”
Raphael smiled and said, "Of course not, the commander of the expeditionary force has always been Lord Tibest, and I am just helping Lord Tadral deal with some military affairs in the absence of Lord Tibest." Now that Master Tibest has returned, of course the command will be handed back to him. ”
Pierre pursed his lips slightly, to be honest, he was not optimistic about the command ability of the Great Knight of Light.
Soon, two griffon knights carried Raphael and Pierre to the camp of the Fourth Legion, and the commanders and heroes of each legion also arrived. This meant that the brains of the expeditionary force were transferred from Raphael to Tibest.
"You're doing a great job, Raphael!" Tibest was very satisfied with this darling of the Holy Light, and if it weren't for the fact that this war was related to the interests of the Holy See of Light and several human kingdoms, he would not even be willing to come here in person, which made him feel like he was grabbing credit.
Raphael was glad to complete the handover of his affairs to Tibbest, including a piece of information that had just been delivered: "Nice to meet you, Lord Tibest! I'm glad you're here, otherwise I'm afraid I'd have made some fatal mistake and put the entire expeditionary force in a dangerous situation. Here's a copy of the information that has just arrived, for Lord Tibester. ”
The information was sent by the two griffon knights, and as the werewolves in the Silverpine Forest were summoned to Shadowfang Castle by Arugao one after another, the focus of the Hammer Dwarves shifted to the vicinity of Shadowfang Castle, which made it no longer necessary for the griffin knights to make frequent sorties.
The two lonely Hammer Dwarves took advantage of the rest of their shifts to ride griffons on a slightly longer "journey" and found a group of human civilians around Lake Lordamere, escorted by some shadow werewolves along the shores of the lake towards the Alterac Mountains. According to the Hammer Dwarves who reported back, the number of human civilians was at least a thousand.
Raphael subconsciously thought that this was some kind of conspiracy planned by the shadow werewolves, but the arrival of Tibest made her choose to leave the problem to the Knight of Light to give her a headache.
Tibest's approach did not surprise Raphael, as the commander of the Second Legion, Norman Bogst, led a force of 3,000 men through the forest to rescue the human civilians. Raphael reminded Tibest of the Shadowwerewolves' purpose for doing so, but Tibbest, eager to end the war, still chose to set his sights on Shadowfang Castle.
He didn't expect that the decision he had made would lead to a terrible end to the war!
Unlike Tibest, Yu Bin, who also learned about this a few hours later, quickly determined the whereabouts of these human civilians, and only the Dark Pine Trolls of Shattered Ridge would need these humans, especially since they also worshipped Haka as an evil god.
"Blood sacrifice of thousands of people, I can't think of any other possibility!" Yu Bin shook his head helplessly, he had to admire Arugao's ability, and even let him find a chance to pull the Dark Pine Troll into the water for the second time in this situation, "I don't know what those trolls are crazy about, isn't it enough to summon Haka in the first place to cause the little half of the Hillsbrad Hills to be almost destroyed?" ”
Although the gods are strong and weak, and even some weak gods are not as powerful as a legendary-level powerhouse, evil gods like Haka basically have a medium level, otherwise they would have been destroyed by those good gods a long time ago.
Yu Bin is no stranger to the blood god Haka, this guy can be regarded as a god with a high appearance rate in his previous life, he used to be the first wind snake in the world of Entagre, and he can be regarded as an ancient creature, but his strength is not strong, until the beginning of the first era, he relied on the faith provided by the trolls to ignite the divine fire and become a god.
In order to increase his power as soon as possible, Haka chose the two priesthoods of blood and viper, and at the same time unscrupulously demanded a large number of sacrifices from the trolls, and even had several records of descending on the clones and slaughtering the troll tribes that summoned him. It can be said that he is an out-and-out evil god.
But he was also a generous deity who would give great strength and blessing to his followers as long as he could satisfy him. At that time, in the face of adversity, it was impossible for the trolls who were eager to resist the elven attack to give up this power, and the Zuaman Troll Empire, founded in Tanalis, once worshipped and sacrificed Haka on a large scale. And for a time, he won the favor of this god, which gave the Zuaman troll great power and was able to tame the wind snake as his pet.
Unfortunately, the good times did not last long, and Haka's insatiable thirst for life and flesh finally made the trolls feel in danger, and most of the lower troll clans demanded to stop believing in Haka, or at least reduce the level of sacrifice to Haka, but the troll priests who were in charge of the sacrifice at that time were the opposite, they thought that the sacrifice of Haka should be greatly increased, in exchange for the arrival of the blood god, and the complete defeat of those elves.
As a result, a civil strife broke out in Zuaman, where most of the troll clans and the priests of the other gods expelled the Hakalai tribe where the blood priests were located, and most of the Hakalai trolls were killed, and only a few managed to escape.
Unwilling to be defeated, the Hakale tribe changed its name to Atalai, and secretly rebuilt the altar of the blood god Haka, and spent hundreds of years collecting enough sacrifices to try to summon the blood god Haka to the world of Ntagre, so that the whole world was shrouded in terror.
The elves discovered this dangerous act in time, and together with a group of dragons, they successfully defeated the Atalai trolls guarding the altar and sealed the altar.
If Yu Bin is not mistaken, the current blood god Haka is in a weakened state, and the sacrifice of the Atalai troll was almost successful, and the blood god Haka descended most of his power into the altar, and was sealed by the elves and dragons who paid a heavy price. This caused Hakka to lose a lot of his divine power, and even fell into a deep sleep for a while. If it weren't for the fact that some of the remaining troll tribes still believed in him, I'm afraid the evil god would have been asleep until the end of the world.
Although Haka has now awakened, his strength has still not recovered, and if the Dark Pine Trolls can provide him with thousands of blood sacrifices at one time, I am afraid that this evil god will not hesitate to accept the kindness of these trolls, in order to recover his strength as soon as possible. The only question is whether Haka will descend a clone or a part of the divine power at that time.
The last time the Dark Pine Trolls held a blood sacrifice to summon Haka was back thousands of years ago, when Haka had just woken up from his slumber, and his divine power did not have much to spare, so he directly descended a doppelganger, and it was not enough to devour the sacrifice, and even more than half of the Dark Pine Trolls were eaten, if it weren't for Dalaran finding out in time, he did not hesitate to kill Haka's clone at the cost of the lives of two legendary-level powerhouses, and he didn't know what the hills of Hillsbrad would be like by this evil god.
And this time, Haka, which has passed thousands of years, will definitely be even stronger.
But from another point of view, this is undoubtedly an opportunity.
Yu Bin found Les and told the lich his reasoning: "So, I think this is an opportunity for you and Lord Kel'thugad!" If the Dark Pine Trolls do summon Haka's clones into this world, this will be the perfect time for your plans to rehearse. There's no better option than killing a god clone to see if your tactics will work hard enough against Rose, the spider goddess. ”
The body of a deity is made up of divine power, but unlike the divine power given to believers, the divine power condensed into a divine body is stronger and stronger. Kel'thugad and Les may know how to deal with the divine power in a god's body, but it is absolutely impossible for them to verify this, killing a god is not a simple matter, even if it is a doppelganger of a god, in most cases, it is equivalent to the strength of a legendary-level powerhouse.
Generally speaking, sending a doppelganger and simply descending divine power is like sending someone out to collect debts and entrusting debts to debt collection agencies, after the doppelganger has enjoyed the sacrifice and absorbed a large amount of faith and energy, as long as it is not destroyed, it can automatically return to the god's body and hand over all the absorbed energy, which can be said to be a profitable practice. Although the divine power can also harvest energy, the part of the divine power that descends belongs to the meat bun beating the dog, and there is no return, which is a one-sided effort for the gods. Yu Bin believes that it is almost impossible for the blood god Haka to sit back and watch this part of his divine power be wasted.
It is impossible for a weak god to waste divine power to create a clone, and even if a strong god is a clone, it is not something that Kel'thugad can deal with. Only a god like the blood god Haka, who has moderate strength and has suffered serious losses, and has just awakened, is their best test subject.
If they were able to capture Haka's doppelganger alive, Kel'thugad and Les could even develop more ways to use it to increase their chances of success against Rose in the future.
Sure enough, Kel'thugard and Les did not hesitate to express their concern about this matter, and asked Yu Bin to keep an eye on the movements on Broken Ridge.
This is Yu Bin's success in taking advantage of the situation again. Since the Battle of Radre, he has made a lot of money on Maltan, and Yu Bin has been thinking about how to cut into the war of the Silver Pine Forest. Originally, he thought that relying on the strength of his own few people, he still had a chance to fish in troubled waters and find a way to get some benefits from this war. But with the addition of Pierre, the expeditionary force has a legend in the Silver Pine Forest, plus a full seven heroes, this is already a very terrifying force, Yu Bin has not yet reached the point of overpower, thinking that he can rely on his own ability to snatch food from the hands of so many strong people.
Now, with two legendary-level lichs and a doppelganger of a god, Yu Bin has a lot more room to operate.
He rekindled his ambition to take advantage of the fire, just as he had devoted himself to the Battle of Radre.