Chapter 362: Cat and Mouse

It turns out that the Warchief can have so many veins popping on his forehead in an instant.

Orgrim Doomhammer grabbed Zul'jin by the collar!

"Aren't you the one who said that trolls are the kings of the forest? That there's nothing in the forest that can escape your scouts? Then what is this?!" Orgrim's furious roar sprayed Zul'jin's face with spittle.

Following Orgrim's pointing finger, Zul'jin was left speechless.

Just half an hour ago, his most trusted scout had reported that the road ahead was clear. No traps, no enemies, until they were within three kilometers of the enemy's outpost.

Recently, many troll scouts who had ventured too close to the human camp had been captured. Zul'jin had always thought that they had fallen into the humans' magical traps.

Just like the thousands of years of war between the trolls and the elves, the trolls still hadn't figured out what all those long-eared creatures' magic was for. The only things the trolls could rely on were their numbers and their strong vitality.

Now, it was obviously beyond the realm of magic.

The red lights symbolizing the alarm stretched from the front all the way to the horizon. These strange metal creatures were shouting loudly, enough to wake up even a bear in the east.

Now the Horde had two choices: one was to retreat, but this would hurt morale; the other was to continue the mad rush, to break into the human camp within two hours. As long as they could hold these humans, even with physical losses, Orgrim firmly believed that his 100,000-strong army of orcs and trolls could easily destroy this annoying tail.

"Gul'dan! I need you to contact Zuluhed!" Orgrim ordered his nearby Warlock King.

Gul'dan's face was full of humility: "As you command, Warchief."

His wrinkled fingers drew several runes flowing with evil energy in the air. Through the mirror that appeared in the void, Orgrim saw his second-in-command.

In the image, a turbulent wind was blowing in the air, that was Zuluhed and his adult red dragon mount.

Feeling the uncomfortable mental connection, Zuluhed frowned, but he still took the initiative to speak: "Warchief, it seems that the humans have received the alarm, but they don't seem to be afraid of our attack. Or they don't know how many of us are attacking. They only sent out less than 100 cavalry from the camp. But that long-eared powerhouse seems to be in the camp, one of my dragon riders who got too close was just shot down."

At this moment, Zul'jin suddenly realized: "That's right, when the humans caught my scouts, they never used more than 200 people. The things they use for alarms seem to be able to spray something that we can't wash off and stick to the trolls, something that can be seen clearly in the dark."

Orgrim thought of many things in an instant.

He didn't understand this new human gadget. Looking at the alarm devices all over the hills emitting the same kind of light, listening to them repeating the same monotonous sentence, Orgrim quickly got over the initial shock.

"Keep moving forward, bring me one of those things."

Zul'jin's figure disappeared. Even though he didn't fully accept Orgrim's rule, this time it was clearly the trolls' mistake.

In less than three minutes, Zul'jin came back carrying a 'struggling', red-light flashing, seemingly alive metal creature.

Orgrim very simply and violently smashed this thing with a hammer.

His action left Zul'jin dumbfounded.

"If I had known, I would have smashed it before bringing it here."

"No, there's a difference. If you did that, I wouldn't know if you brought all the parts." Orgrim carefully examined the debris, but he quickly felt a sense of being fooled.

Most of it was parts he couldn't understand, round, elongated, toothed, and a few magic-infused crystals.

"Gul'dan, can you sense anything mysterious, capable of transmitting messages?"

"No, Warchief." Gul'dan humbly shook his head: "I can only feel something similar to a totem pole that reacts on its own when it enters a certain range."

A passive sensor.

The displeasure on the Warchief's face became more apparent.

In Orgrim's view, these human gadgets were like the dwarves' huge machines, impressive but useless. They could still be dealt with using hammers and axes. In the end, these were no different from the simple traps the orcs used for hunting. Like tying a bell to a string, any fool who steps on the string would immediately make a ringing sound.

"All forces, advance at full speed!" Orgrim raised his Doomhammer high.

Thirty kilometers away, Alleria watched the dragon riders hovering almost on the horizon.

"Will Orgrim fall for it?" Alleria asked Duke softly while lovingly watching her exhausted sister resting on a camp bed.

"He will." Duke's face was full of confidence.

Then both of them looked at the huge but empty camp. There were many humanoid figures in the camp, but unfortunately, they were all straw men in armor. The real force that had traveled 80 kilometers to get here was actually just a 3,000-strong cavalry unit.

However, with two horses per person, plus a large number of wagons carrying supplies, they managed to create a huge camp that could accommodate 30,000 people with just 3,000.

The boiling soup pot, the chefs distributing black bread, the patrolling soldiers, it looked no different from a large army. Only insiders knew that the soldiers only came out to put on a show when the dragon riders got a little closer.

Even the elite of Stormwind were exhausted.

In fact, the real main force was still 50 kilometers behind.

Duke's mouth curled up in a calculating smile.

The Horde was getting closer. Duke's Gnome army faithfully fed back all kinds of information. Except for the first one smashed by Orgrim, which was an old-style "Mobile Alarm System" robot from Gnomeregan, all the others within a twenty-kilometer range were modified versions adjusted by Duke's system sprite.

Of course, not every gnome was such a high-end robot. Duke had installed a simple control system evolved from Morse code for them. Not all gnomes showed their true colors, more were disguised as small trees, passive enemy detection systems fixed in important positions.

Although simple, it was enough for the system sprite to summarize all the messages from the sensors, and count the number of Horde members who arrived in a certain area from the sensors.

They're close!

Closer!

Even closer!

When the Horde's main force finally appeared on the horizon and began to charge, Duke waited until the Horde entered a two-kilometer range before raising his hand, and the 3,000 cavalry quickly retreated.

Orgrim was almost driven mad.

Duke's forces were right under his nose, but it felt like he was raising his hammer for close combat, and Duke had run to the range of a thrown spear. Raising the spear, Duke had already run to the range of a catapult. When pulling the catapult, the enemy had already run so far that only the dust behind their backs could be seen.

The Warchief was on the verge of spitting blood.