Settling the Matter

Blackmoore eagerly set out with his army. He expected to recapture Thrall, the Orc slave he had raised. Once he had Thrall, he would be able to command tens of thousands of Orc warriors and become the most powerful figure in the Alliance.

Harboring his ambitions, Blackmoore led his army into the old Alterac valley where the Orcs were hiding, guided by his warlock advisor's felhound. But the moment he saw the Orcs, he regretted it. There were too many—far too many Orcs.

"Thrall." Clad in heavy armor, Blackmoore looked at the Orc warriors watching him without immediately attacking. He suppressed the unrest among his troops, then boldly rode to the front lines and called out to his Orc slave.

As Blackmoore called his name from the front, Thrall sat atop Snowsong within the Orc formation, clad in black plate armor and holding Doomhammer. Hearing the distant call, he turned to glance at the towering Troll beside him, who rode a Raptor.

"Does Zul'ra Jin truly have no other special demands?" Thrall asked Bash. The Amani had proposed this plan, and for the Orcs in Durnholde, he could only passively accept it. Yet deep down, he did not want to completely break with humanity.

Thrall hoped to find a way for Orcs and humans to coexist peacefully, but that possibility depended on not killing Blackmoore. In his eyes, the Trolls' plan to lure Blackmoore out and seize Durnholde seemed to be forcing him to choose a side.

"Warchief, whatever you choose to do, we will accept it. Those were Zul'ra Jin's exact words." Bash gave the Warchief a polite bow. Before he came, Zul'ra Jin had already told him that once the plan was carried out, how the situation on the battlefield would be handled would depend entirely on the