Chapter 310: I Believe in You

Seeing Duke's troubled expression, Llane had an epiphany. He patted Duke on the shoulder, "I believe in you."

I believe in you.

These simple words weighed heavily.

This was not the trust of an ordinary person, but the trust of a king, a king who was willing to put the full strength of his kingdom behind his trust.

Llane expressed his support for Duke through his actions.

"Bolvar, I need you to hold off the Horde's attack on Southshore with an elite battalion, along with a few new ones. Can you do it?"

Under normal circumstances, Marshal Bolvar would have spat at the suggestion. A battle that could easily be won with the main force was being handed over to green troops. It was a clear case of blind command.

But Bolvar understood now. This was Llane deliberately conserving strength for the 'Battle of Hinterlands' that Duke had mentioned.

Bolvar nodded, "I will withdraw the Gryphon Battalion to serve as a reserve."

Marshal Abbendis was also torn. He looked at Llane, then at Duke, recalling all the miraculous things Duke had done in the past, he felt a bit helpless, "Alright, I will also withdraw my elite battalion."

"Thank you."

Duke quickly calculated. With the full support of Llane and Abbendis, plus the necessary emergency support, it should be just enough.

Duke turned to his deputy, Windsor, and said, "In view of the Horde's attempt to send transport ships through the strait between the two continents, the Horde is likely to launch an air strike against the southern defense line of Stromgarde. At the same time, if the transport ships pass through the strait, the Horde will launch a landing operation targeting Hinterlands. I hope Marshal Trollbane can fully consider the situation and send more support from Stromgarde."

Arathi Highlands and Hinterlands are separated by high mountains, and there are many elemental creatures running around on the mountains that attack on sight, making troop movements quite troublesome. Mountain marching is much more troublesome than sea transportation, so if troops are to be moved, it has to be done now. Any later would be too late.

Duke's order to Windsor meant that he was issuing the most formal order as the Deputy Commander of the Alliance. Such an order would not only be communicated by magic, but also by Gryphon Riders, and was considered the highest level of order within the Alliance.

Thoras Trollbane could ignore it out of self-interest, but if there were any problems afterwards, it would be his Stromgarde that would suffer.

After Duke finished speaking, everyone was still worried.

Destroying ground defenses with an air force is very effective. Everyone had seen the Gryphon's ground attack capabilities, which were quite terrifying. The problem was, the Alliance didn't have many Gryphons either. The seven human kingdoms of the Alliance combined only had two or three hundred Gryphons, which were usually used for reconnaissance, and no king was willing to send Gryphons to the front line.

Moreover, where did the Horde get a large air force?

Yet Duke looked absolutely certain.

Llane and the others were completely baffled.

But they soon found out.

When they used their unparalleled art of war to repel several waves of Orc attacks and rotated their troops, something happened to the Thandol Span defense line.

From a distance, the Horde entered the strait between the two continents earlier, but the defense line of Stromgarde against the strait was arranged around the Thandol Span. This made the Stromgarde army enter the battle state later than Southshore.

"Whoosh—" The huge catapult flung a large basket of human-head-sized rocks with its long mechanical arm, aiming at the Horde transport ships in the center of the strait.

The Horde transport ships hadn't really entered the range yet, and it was clear that the Horde peons rowing inside were either scared or for some other reason. A large number of transport ships stopped outside the range of Stromgarde's long-range weapons.

"Hahaha! I didn't expect the Horde to actually send transport ships. I thought this defense line was a waste." The soldiers from Stromgarde laughed.

During the time they were defending the Thandol Span, the Stromgarde soldiers, due to the extensive use of crossbow cannons, catapults, and cannons, had trained a number of very competent engineers, artillerymen, and crossbowmen.

This was an unexpected gain.

You see, these people were originally farmers.

King Thoras Trollbane was a man who understood soldiers. As the first human kingdom in the northern six countries to receive an attack report, King Thoras had always taken the orcs very seriously.

After receiving Duke's formal order and notification, Thoras agreed to Duke's request without hesitation. He complied with the order, sending a fully formed battalion of 5,000 infantrymen to Duke. In addition, he urgently assembled a large number of crossbow cannons and five archer battalions to the Thandol Span defense line, forming a deep formation to deal with the possible 'air raid'.

"Air raid? What air raid?"

Whether it was the soldiers of Stromgarde or the officers, they were all baffled. They just blindly followed the order, according to the order of the Deputy Commander of the Alliance—all archers and crossbowmen must be sufficiently dispersed. The same goes for the crossbow cannons, it's best to cover them with a lot of branches and leaves for concealment before firing.

What the hell was this?

This completely overturned the military common sense of this era.

Humans are not like elves, unless they are hunters or elites trained for more than three years, most human archers have poor archery skills, and ordinary shooting beyond twenty meters is unpredictable. They often have to rely on finding sharpshooters to lead the shooting, and carry out large-scale cover shooting towards a certain area to make up for the lack of archery skills.

Dispersed archers have no power to speak of, this is a common sense in human military.

Now the shooters of Stromgarde were dispersed, with doubts.

More doubts were, why were most of the crossbow cannons placed on the edge of the cliff either not assembled properly, or broken, leaving only a frame, and a bunch of... straw men wearing Stromgarde soldier armor?

It didn't take long for their doubts to be resolved.

Damn it, the Horde really does have an air force!

"Look!" With the exclamation of an archer, countless people saw many, many black dots appearing in the sky against the rising sun.

In just a few breaths, these black dots quickly magnified in their field of vision, becoming black flying creatures flapping their wings.

But, they were already so big far away in the sky, their real size could be imagined.

"Stay calm! Stay calm! Stick to your posts! Everything is within the Deputy Commander Duke's expectations." For a moment, an unknown officer shouted so.

Amazingly, the chaotic army quickly calmed down.

Duke Marcus, a magical name, this name represents the bloody heads of more than two hundred thousand orcs, and also represents the victory of the Alliance.

Thinking of the previous bizarre arrangement, the soldiers suddenly realized—so their commander had anticipated this!

Soldiers don't have such a long-term vision, as long as they know this is a prepared battle

, they won't panic so easily.

The Horde really does have an air force!

"Look!" With the exclamation of an archer, countless people saw many, many black dots appearing in the sky against the rising sun.

In just a few breaths, these black dots quickly magnified in their field of vision, becoming black flying creatures flapping their wings.

But, they were already so big far away in the sky, their real size could be imagined.

"Stay calm! Stay calm! Stick to your posts! Everything is within the Deputy Commander Duke's expectations." For a moment, an unknown officer shouted so.

Amazingly, the chaotic army quickly calmed down.

Duke Marcus, a magical name, this name represents the bloody heads of more than two hundred thousand orcs, and also represents the victory of the Alliance.

Thinking of the previous bizarre arrangement, the soldiers suddenly realized—so their commander had anticipated this!

Soldiers don't have such a long-term vision, as long as they know this is a prepared battle, they won't panic so easily.