Just as the divine descent crisis erupted in Water-Drawing City, the first batch of reinforcements from Ascore had already boarded the Northlands Intercity Express. From afar, they could make out the outline of the port city and the boundless Trollwall.
Faced with the coming war, the Northlands soldiers packed into the carriages like canned tuna did not feel much fear.
The Northlands had never lacked for war. Especially after the Saints' Calamity, when Li Wei, in a fit of fury, swept the Orc Divine Kingdom, Nishak's Realm, out of the Astral Plane with a single Void Breath and sent it crashing into the High Glacier, border clashes between the Silvermoon Federation, Ascore, and the orcs had scarcely ever truly ceased over the past sixty years.
It was simply unclear whether the Orc gods feared the power that had destroyed their Divine Kingdom, but they had never shown themselves on the front lines all these years. They merely sent the orcs to endlessly wear down the strength of the Northlands as a gradual test.
Yet this frequent warfare had also forged the finest batch of veteran soldiers the Northlands had seen in nearly a thousand years.
Though for the most part they relied on fortifications, magic cannons, alchemical repeating crossbows, and other long-range firepower to handle the bulk of orc incursions, it had at least made them far steadier and calmer in both temperament and will when facing sudden war and savage enemies than fresh recruits who had never set foot on a battlefield or seen blood.
Even so, upon learning that their possible opponents this time were Drow elves, most of the soldiers still felt a faint but unmistakable tension and unease in their hearts.
Several major city-states of the Northlands connected to the Underdark, so over the years, aside