After some time passed, the Alliance showed no reaction, and the Titan God who ruled the Alliance like a local emperor made no further investigations or retaliations.
The Horde was relieved and continued attacking Lordaeron and the Kingdom of Gilneas. However, the new offensive was far less ferocious than before, mainly because Gul'dan had finally awakened.
Ever since Hu Feng had forcibly taken a portion of Gul'dan's soul, he had fallen directly into slumber. Now that he had awakened, he found that the world had changed...
His puppet, Warchief Blackhand, had been killed by Lothar, and the Frostwolf Clan had left the Horde. A third of the warlocks from his Stormreaver Clan had also fled. Apparently, that hateful traitor Retsen had defected to the Alliance's True Titan God, then desperately pulled his former companions in with him. Those warlocks, who had never truly submitted to Gul'dan and believed themselves equally powerful, secretly fled one after another, heading to Stormwind City to work for their new master.
To preserve his life, Gul'dan took the initiative to show weakness. He declared that he was willing to serve the current Great Chief, Orgrim. The warlocks under his command would answer every call and contribute together to the Horde's great cause.
Since Orgrim had also suffered enough at the hands of human mages, he decided after some consideration to spare Gul'dan's life and let him redeem himself through service.
To gain the Great Chief's trust, Gul'dan began an incomparably evil plan. He collected the corpses of human knights who had died in battle and forcibly stuffed warlocks' souls into them. These beings, neither alive nor dead, were called Death Knights. They were not only skilled in fel magic like warlocks, but also proficient in the close-combat techniques of knights. Thus, the first batch of