While Li Wei was splurging on meat in the Griffon Mountains to lure griffons into his grasp, an Orc clan called Shadowmoon in the Hidden Forest to the north was so hungry they survived by eating dirt and gnawing bones.
And that was no exaggeration.
Because food was scarce in the Spine of the World, under the guidance of their wise Shamans, these Orcs often found a kind of clay rich in minerals, made it into flat cakes, sprinkled them with rock salt, a little wheat bran, and bone meal pounded with stone pestles, then baked them on heated brick beds.
When meat was unavailable, they could cling to life for quite some time through this miraculous method.
Yet even so, Orcs bred far too quickly, and the fragile ecosystem around the Spine of the World could no longer support any more of them.
Witnessed by Gruumsh, the Orc God, in a sacred tribal duel, their Shadowmoon Clan had suffered a humiliating defeat to the Bloodaxe Clan.
Under the terms of their pact, they had to lead their people southward from the Spine of the World.
For one thing, this would ease the pressure on survival caused by population and food shortages.
For another, they could steadily weaken the southern humans through plunder.
They only had to wait for the day when the great Orc God granted His revelation, and then they could march south in force and completely conquer the whole Coriel Continent.
To bypass the blockade imposed by Mithril Hall's Warhammer Dwarves, the two clans that had migrated out of the Spine of the World had no choice but to part ways. The Bloodaxe Clan chose to face the ascendant Silvermoon Federation head-on, establishing its temporary base in Moonwood north of Silvermoon City.
Their Shadowmoon Clan, meanwhile, chose