The Critical Moment Still Called for the Old Man

On the third day after Murphy was assassinated and went missing, the situation at the Blackflame Pass position had become as bad as it could possibly get.

The Rending Claw Clan had not launched another reckless all-out assault, but the scouting reports from both the players and the elven rangers showed that the gnoll army was already in position.

More than a hundred and fifty thousand gnolls, along with an uncountable number of kobold cannon fodder, had completely surrounded Blackflame Pass from every direction, cutting it off and turning it into a true island of war. Even the non-frontline battlefield over at Fort Courage had a gnoll army carrying out a siege.

For some reason, Lord Heather and her commanders could not figure out why the gnolls had yet to attack. What they could be sure of was that the initiative in the war did not currently lie with Blackflame Pass.

The lord had been under tremendous pressure these past few days.

While surrounding Blackflame Pass, the Rending Claw Clan had also sent kobolds to dig tunnels along the pass's other accessible routes.

It was difficult for them to dig tunnels large enough for an army to pass through, but they could still manage narrow paths for infiltration. As a result, small groups of gnolls had begun appearing here and there in the desolate mountains behind Blackflame Pass.

Some local gnolls already roamed this area, and when the two groups joined forces, they became a new threat.

Lord Heather was now immensely grateful that there was still a force of Transians she could deploy from Darkvale. That meant she did not have to worry about the dispatched vanguard causing trouble behind the lines.

The reassuring thing was that the Transian warriors remained as active as ever on the battlefield.

They