May 10, 1999, of the Holy Calendar. Dawn.
The prairie wind swept dust and the smell of blood from east to west across the vast wilderness before Black Stone Fortress. Two armies spread out slowly beneath the rising sun like two dark iron clouds.
Aldo and the Prairie Royal Tent were about to clash here!
Paul stood on a hastily erected command platform. Behind him, Arda's Crimson Dragon Banner snapped in the wind. Looking down, he saw the Aldo Army already arrayed on the gentle slope.
Thirty-three thousand officers and soldiers stood in neat formation. The soldiers of the First and Second Divisions formed orderly double-rank lines, their dark blue uniforms gleaming coldly in the morning light, their Type 98 breech-loading rifles standing straight like a forest on their shoulders.
The Aldo Army had not formed a dense square formation. Instead, it had spread into a fire line stretching nearly two miles, with passages left between each battalion for rotation and support. Officers rode back and forth among them. Fifty cannons stood in a line before the formation, their barrels tilted slightly upward. The gunners had already opened the ammunition crates and set the fuses. They only awaited the order to unleash the Wrath of Thunder.
Slightly behind the right wing, Baron Andrew's Fourth Division had been deployed in staggered diagonal echelons. It could cover the main formation's flank or be thrown into a counterattack at any moment. The cavalry led by Derrick Heller and Garett Ferdinand stood by on the left wing.
Opposite them, the Prairie Royal Tent's army spread across the plains like a black tide. The 150,000 Orcish warriors were not arranged in especially neat ranks, yet they possessed their own rough and ancient order.
At the very front stood the Assault Warriors, clad in heavy armor