In the twenty-fourth spring after the opening of the Dark Gate, in the second week after the Winter Veil had passed, Diego and his party left Stratholme and set out on their way south.

They were joined by a tribal legion of orcs, minotaurs, and trolls, and after the reconstruction of Stratholm was completed, reinforcements from various races began to return to their kingdom in order to ease the city's supply burden. Before that, the two legions of the Forsaken had already returned to the Undercity first, and the Hammer Dwarves had mostly stayed, and they still had a lot of work to do as salaried craftsmen.

Heading east from the main gate of Stratholme, you can see that everywhere you can see on both sides of the road is covered with a thick layer of ash, as if covering the earth with a black carpet. The orcs have a talent for arson that no other race can match, and the forests twisted by the plague into giant mushrooms have been burned, and the thick ashes of grass and trees have been soaked into the barren soil with the melting water of the winter snow.

"Come and see, this grass is not polluted!" Squatting in the wilderness not far from the road, Masrae, who checked the soil moisture, suddenly shouted in surprise.

Everyone gathered around, and saw that in the thick ashes, a small goose-yellow spiky bud was quietly peeking out. It was a wild weed that could be found everywhere in Azeroth, and it couldn't have been more ordinary. As a pasture grass, it has a dry wood-like taste that even the most unfussy livestock is too lazy to bow their heads and nibble on a few bites, but when it grows in the fields, its tenacious vitality is a headache, and it is one of the plants that farmers dislike the most.

However, at this moment, it is even more beautiful and dazzling than the most expensive black lotus in the eyes of everyone, because its existence shows that this land contaminated by the plague still has the possibility of recovery!

Masrae carefully put the mud the size of a fingernail back next to the shoots, and tiptoed back down the road with the others, lest they trample on other shoots that might have been hidden beneath the ashes.

Standing on the side of the road, Masrae closed his eyes slightly, unleashing his wild perception with all his might, and under the gentle touch of the power of nature he released, more shoots hidden under the ashes were discovered, and these immature rays of life were dotted in the vast wilderness, all over the mountains, dotting this silent land! For the plague lands where the earth is corrupted and the plants and trees are dying, this is simply a new hope!

"It's so beautiful!" The young druid closed his eyes slightly and muttered. Shocked by this tenacious miracle of life, two lines of tears couldn't help but trickle down from the corners of his eyes and drip into the dry soil.

They lingered here for about a quarter of an hour before hitting the road again. Although Darnassus had written back before the Winter Veil that he would send the druids to help restore the ecology, the elven city perched atop the World Tree was so far away that Masrae estimated that it would take at least another month for them to arrive. But he is confident that his fellow citizens will take care of these new lives.

But for the travelers, this surprising discovery was definitely exciting news, and everyone, including the orcs, felt in a good mood, and even walked a lot brisker. On the first day they left Stratholme, they had walked hundreds of miles until they came to the three-way road that led to the elven kingdom to the north.

That night, they set up camp under a sheltered hill.

With both the Scourge and the Scarlet Crusaders out of the area, the night here is much safer. Only a few mutated beasts infected by the plague roared from time to time from the distant wilderness, but for this large camp of more than a thousand people, no beast dared to come up and brush the tiger's whiskers without long eyes, but the sentinels on duty at night were kind of eye-opening, from wild dogs the size of calves, to large bats with wingspans of three or four meters, and disgusting scavenging maggots twice as thick as a water tank.

The greedy predators hid their heads and tails out of the torch light, but after the orcs quickly and forcefully threw their spears at warning, they all scattered, leaving only a few unfortunate bastards nailed to the ground by spears, struggling and wailing, and refusing to breathe for a long time.

The next day, they headed south from here, and after a few days of trekking, they turned west again at the Kaulin junction.

By this time, the climate in the Plaguelands had begun to warm. Perhaps the reason why the plague clouds that obscured the sky had finally been dispersed, this spring came earlier than usual, with the snow melting, the permafrost melting, and the roads becoming muddy and potholes.

In times of peace, the consuls and lords would have sent people to maintain the roads, and covered them with branches of willow and fir trees, and thick gravel pads, but after the destruction of the kingdom, the plague land that had been beaten was almost empty, and it was difficult for the people to survive, and they did not care about this at all, and the Silver Dawn, which had just recovered the region, did not have time to put this matter on the agenda.

They had been walking on potholes and muddy roads for almost a week, less than half the distance they had traveled, but in any case, after a strenuous trek, they reached the vicinity of Talon County, which was only a day's journey from the Sodoril River. It was the place where the previous owner of Diego's body grew up, and it was of extraordinary importance to him.

They stayed at the fork in the road for the night, and the next morning, Diego left the road with Masrae and Brian Copperbeard, along with another local man, Karin Respard, a veteran on secondment from Tirio.

They walked for more than an hour along the fork in the road to the south, and came to the ruins of what was once Talonshire at the foot of the mountains.

Speaking of counties, the county of Talon is indeed a large area, but most of its territory is located further south in the mountains near Lake Daron Mill - hence its name, only the hilly terrain to the north is inhabited, and it is barely a small town. Normally, when people think of Talon County, they mostly refer to this town.

Due to its location in a valley, there is very little arable land, and most of the inhabitants rely on the mountains to feed on the mountains and make a living from hunting. This also fostered the fierce and fierce folk customs of Talongshire, where almost every adult man wielded a sword and drew a hard bow. So after the outbreak of the natural war, the men of Talonshire took up arms and formed a militia with great combat effectiveness.

From then on, a singing and crying battle began! Countless heroes were born from here, and countless heroes fell here! As a resident of Diego, the previous owner of Diego's body took part in the heroic battle, and he was even one of the messengers sent by militia captain Joseph Respard to various places to ask for help!

At the time, the forces of the Scourge were raging across the lands of Lordaeron and Talon County was cut off from the main forces of the Alliance, but the town was already home to a team of Silver Hand Paladins whose captain, Davi Lefal, was a native of Daron County who led his followers back when he learned that the town was about to be attacked. Together with the militia led by Joseph Redpass, they formed the defense of Talonshire.

The first attack of the Undead Scourge was only tentative. Squads of skeletons and zombies wander around the outskirts of the town and are easily defeated.

But the tenacity of the defenses didn't hold the undead back, and they continued to attack frantically, with wave after wave of undead troops arriving fierce battles with the defenders of Talonshire, trying to flood the town with the sea of the undead.

The militia was weakened, but the Silver Hand continued to appear in the most critical places, stubbornly supporting the entire defensive line.

After the Scourge leader Hogus himself joined the fray, he confronted Davey head-on. Their battle lasted for a long time, and in the end Davi won a hard-fought victory, but he was mortally wounded and died shortly after defeating the Ghoul King.

The battle continued, and Captain Joseph Redpass led the militia in a valiant fight. If it weren't for the captain's control of the dark magic of the Death Knight Marduk, the battle would have been won. But eventually, a desperate scene happened.

During the battle, Marduk rushes up to Redpass on horseback, and he uses dark magic to tear apart Radpass's will, twisting his soul into an evil shadow.

The depraved Captain Redpass spread his evil power to the defenders of County Talon, and the infected soldiers immediately betrayed their fellow citizens and began to slaughter them. Eventually they turned to the town and slaughtered the women and children who were hiding in their homes.

The fallen Captain Redpas eventually left the ruined county of Daron with the army of the undead and threw himself into the battlefield of Lordaeron, where he was once and for all killed in the area of Garron's Farm in the Western Plaguelands. But no one knows where his soul went.