Night Raid
Zul'ra, along with his thirty-one subordinates and Velinde's group, rested for the night in Faldir's Cove. Velinde's group purchased horses for transportation, while Zul'ra had his men buy food, water, and other supplies.
The next morning, Zul'ra and Velinde set off with their team, entering the Arathi Highlands from Faldir's Cove. Throughout the day, Zul'ra observed Velinde, trying to point out that she had been carrying the scythe for too long.
"No, I will not let go of my scythe." Velinde remained calm in the face of the problem, but expressed her will with a single sentence.
"So what do you plan to do with this sickle?" Zul'ra asked Velinde, who was riding on Kulai Mao'er and carrying the sickle, after thinking for a long time.
"I don't know, but I feel I shouldn't let him go, at least not until the mission is complete." Velinde pondered as she sat on her horse, then drifted into a daze.
"Mission?" Zul'ra seized upon a key word.
"What did you say?" Velinde woke up with a start, unable to recall what she had just said.
"It's nothing. I think the sun is about to set. We might need to find a place to camp tonight," Zul'ra said, looking ahead at the setting sun.
The weather in Arathi Highlands is not good; even when the sun is out, the sky is overcast, so it gets dark very quickly once the sun sets.
Before it got dark, Zul'ra had everyone find a safe place to camp and set up the tents as quickly as possible so that they would have a place to sleep that night. As for campfires and wild game, that was out of the question.
Arathi Highlands is a primeval wilderness, teeming with dinosaurs and wild beasts. Lighting a fire here at night is tantamount to telling those nocturnal animals to come and eat. Zul'ra only allowed his subordinates and Velinde and others to eat some dry rations and clean water, and then arranged for night watch.
As night fell, the sky was devoid of stars, with two bright moons, one blue and one white, each shining in the same sky. After arranging the guards, Zul'ra went into his tent. As the leader, he naturally didn't need to stand night watch.
Although Zul'ra didn't need to stand guard at night, he didn't sleep either. Instead, he closed his eyes in the tent, regulated his breathing, and meditated to clear his mind of distractions. If nothing unexpected happened, he would spend the night like this.
Zul'ra thought he had a balanced night after his airship safely crossed the Great Sea, but as the night went by, he realized he was very wrong.
The blue and white moons, forming an arc in the sky, were about to set in the west. As the night grew increasingly quiet, Zul'ra suddenly opened his eyes inside the tent, then quickly lifted the curtain and stepped out. Looking around at the darkness, although there was no sign of anything, he sensed that someone was lingering around.
"Zul'ra Jin?" Bag Trolls Tooth-Soldiers on night watch, spotted Zul'ra emerging from the tent and approached him, asking in a questioning tone.
"Go and wake everyone up, hurry!" Zul'ra looked out into the darkness and told Bag to wake the others. Then he quickly turned and headed toward Velinde's tent, but before he could get close, two strong female Night Elves emerged from the tent and blocked his way.
"Please wake Velinde, we need to get going." Zul'ra looked at the two female Night Elves blocking her way and tried to communicate with them, but they remained unmoved, their silver eyes reflecting the night light with a cold indifference.
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"Velinde." Zul'ra looked at the unmoved woman and tried to raise her voice to call out. At this moment, a strange sound came from inside the tent, like the sound of someone falling to the ground, followed by Velinde's voice.
"What's wrong, Zul'ra?" Velinde seemed to wake up from a dream, but her voice was calm and composed, showing no signs of sleepiness. As she spoke, the remaining four male Night Elves emerged from various places. They did not look at Zul'ra, but instead surveyed the camp with indifferent eyes.
"Hurry up and come out, we have to get going." Zul'ra said as soon as he saw Velinde's companions come out, and then he ran away as he heard the neighing of horses and Raptor.
When Zul'ra arrived at the camp where the mounts were tethered, he only saw the horse and Raptor lying in pools of blood. Kulai Mao'er and the others were gone. Only seven humans, covered from head to toe in black Gothic plate armor, stood there, their swords dripping with blood. They all turned around, pointing the slits of their Gothic helmets at themselves.
"Who are you people?" Zul'ra grinned as he looked at the seven armored men standing on the corpse of his mount, who had all turned to face him.
In addition to their black Gothic plate armor, the seven men wore large black robes that made them look like bats. They held steel swords and wore heavy steel boots. They formed a semi-circular formation around the Trolls who were much taller than them.
"Swords!" they shouted in unison, their hoarse voices like knives scraping the bottom of a pot. The seven armored men raised their steel swords and slowly closed in on Zul'ra.
"Do you want my sword, or do you want yours?" Zul'ra looked down at the seven armored men who had gathered around him, and with a smile, drew his Forest Sword from his waist. A blue light shone on the broad, long blade.
"Forest Blade, Forest Blade, hand it over." Seven hoarse voices overlapped, sending chills down one's spine. Before Zul'ra could speak, she felt several javelins fly out of the darkness behind her, instantly felling the seven armored men to the ground. Then, a low, canine howl echoed through the camp.
"Zul'ra Jin, we've been attacked." The voice of the night Tooth-Soldiers Bag came from behind, but Zul'ra couldn't answer because the seven armored men who had been shot down by javelins had stood up as if nothing had happened, their armor without even a dent.
"Fight!" Zul'ra shouted to the Tooth-Soldiers on his left and right, then quickly stepped forward, swinging his sword to cut off the head of the nearest armored man. However, he was surprised to find that the man had blocked his sword with a steel blade. Incredibly, the man's weapon had actually blocked the Forest Sword. This was the first time he had ever encountered a blade that could block the Forest Sword.
"Holler!" Zul'ra roared, then moved his longsword aside and slashed at the armored man. Taking advantage of the man's successful parry, the longsword slipped into his throat, the blade piercing through the weak point of the armor into the muscle layer of the trachea, penetrating the entire cervical vertebra, and then moving to the left, splitting half of the armored man's neck open.
"I'm so afraid your body will be like a blade..." Zul'ra breathed a sigh of relief after slicing the armored man's neck in half, but to her surprise, the man stood there upright, with only half of his neck still attached to his shoulder. He then swung his sword back and repeated his words in a hoarse voice.
"The Forest Blade, give it to me."
"Everyone be careful." Zul'ra swallowed the rest of his sentence, frantically parrying the sword that was coming at him, while simultaneously issuing a warning. His Tooth-Soldiers had already rushed past him toward the other armored men.