Chapter 378: The Fall of the High Elves - Part 2

The Horde's equipment was a hodgepodge of everything.

Stone hammers, spears made from sharpened tree branches, armor fashioned from animal hides, and freshly made catapults assembled from tree branches, still adorned with untrimmed leaves and branches...

At first glance, it seemed as if their opponents were uncivilized barbarian tribes.

And the trolls flanking the orcs were just as they had been thousands of years ago. Their spears were uniformly tipped with sharp stones, which were quite dangerous for the nearly unarmored rangers, but completely useless against the heavily armored elven infantry and arcane constructs.

The initial tension of the elven soldiers was completely dispelled by the sight before them, replaced by low laughter.

"I thought we were up against some formidable intelligent race that could break through our runestone magic defense line..."

"The rangers on the border are useless, being beaten by such creatures to the point of abandoning all their dignity, sending dozens of distress letters a day."

The laughter of the soldiers drifted on the wind to the ears of the ranger units stationed at the Eastern Sanctuary defense line, angering every elven ranger.

The Windrunner sisters stood in various postures:

Alleria stood tall and proud, her face expressionless, but anyone could see the pain in her eyes.

Sylvanas crossed her arms and leaned against a pillar in the shadow of the sanctuary, her back to the battlefield, a bone-chilling smirk on her lips.

Vereesa, who should have been the most lively, sat silently on the steps of the sanctuary, her arms wrapped around her knees.

Lirath, with a serious expression, covered her forehead with her right hand, making a gesture of looking into the distance: "Big sister, the front is a mixed bag, the back is the elite led by the Blackrock clan, and there seems to be a special fog-type spell in the far back."

"Duke was right again..." Alleria, the great hero of the Troll Wars, murmured as if in a trance. Soon, her emerald eyes regained their luster: "As long as Duke is here, the high elves will not perish."

With that, she raised her voice and called out, "Haduron! Lor'themar!"

Two elven rangers immediately came to Alleria's side.

"Haduron Brightwing, reporting for duty."

"Lor'themar Theron, reporting for duty."

Alleria turned around: "Is everything ready?"

Both ranger captains hesitated a bit, but after a brief pause, they both replied, "Ready."

"That's good." Alleria nodded, completely unaware that she had just ordered two future prominent figures of Silvermoon City...

On the other side, both armies sounded their horns almost simultaneously.

All elven warriors performed the same action, donning their helmets.

The elven helmet is very different from the common Alliance Arathor-style helmet.

Its decorative significance far outweighs its practical use. Compared to the semi-cover style of the Alliance helmet, the elven helmet is more like a beautifully carved face mask, with intricate patterns and exquisite coloring. From a distance, the entire field is reflected with golden and red light.

Because they generally use kite shields, the soldiers' movements are quite agile.

However, when Orgrim Doomhammer saw these rather narrow shields from his command post, the Warchief let out a cold laugh.

Here, on a huge command platform held up by four five-meter-tall arcane constructs, Kael'thas Sunstrider, the rightful heir of the great Sunstrider royal family, was displaying his dazzling appearance before the army.

With a wave of his hand, a step of his foot, he exuded an unimaginable charm.

Pointing gently towards the distance, Kael'thas loudly commanded, "Covering fire!"

As the messenger's words spread through a mature magical communication system beyond human comprehension to the mage squad in the rear, a continuous line of fire that lit up the entire horizon shone brilliantly on the hillside near the Eastern Sanctuary.

This was the result of over a thousand earth mages casting Fireball simultaneously!

The number of mages in this group was equivalent to the total number of mages in several human kingdoms. In the high elves' ranks, this was just standard. In fact, in the elven army, mages made up more than one-tenth of the force.

Such a large number of mages created a terrifying momentum.

With a continuous whistling sound, countless fireballs flew over the heads of the elven infantry, landing on the orc skirmish line on the other side of the battlefield that was just beginning to charge.

It was an instinctive, impending doom-like premonition. Every orc warrior about to be hit had a tingling sensation on their scalp.

Not a single orc panicked, and not a single orc retreated. They continued to roar and charge.

A dozen seconds later, a sea of red fire fell from the sky, covering the already somewhat disorganized orc charge. Over eight hundred orc warriors were instantly reduced to ashes, and twice that number became burning human torches, struggling and rolling in the flames.

It was easy to imagine that in a short while, they would all become charred corpses.

Next, it was time for the harvest.

The elven infantry, advancing with their kite shields in one hand, thought so. No unit could maintain morale after such a blow. That's what their instructors had told them during training.

Unfortunately, they had met the exception.

Despite the majority of their comrades being consumed by the flames, the remaining orcs still launched a frenzied charge.

"This can't be!!" A female mage next to Kael'thas screamed.

Kael'thas squinted his eyes. He pretended to be calm, but others could hear a tremor in his voice: "Sharpshooters, take them down!"

The charging orcs were already very scattered, and further covering fire would be a waste. The few hundred orcs left should have been left for the infantry to deal with. A strong sense of crisis made Kael'thas give the order to finish them off.

Unfortunately, his sharpshooters let him down.

Sharpshooters were the elite among the rangers, and due to political reasons, the Windrunner family's rangers were not eligible to join this royal direct shooter unit. Their shooting skills were indeed outstanding, but in fact, not many of them had experienced real combat.

When they encountered these orcs who were still roaring madly and charging desperately, even after many of their comrades had died, many 'sharpshooters' hit the orcs but failed to hit vital points due to various subjective or objective reasons.

Kael'thas saw with his own eyes an orc, who had been pierced by three arrows in the cheek and looked like a porcupine, still charging at the elven infantry line, even though he was covered in blood.

"There are less than three hundred orcs left, it should be okay, right?" Kael'thas said to himself.

What happened next nearly scared him out of his wits.

The elven infantry line was actually broken by a mere three hundred orcs!