Saving the Tauren

In his previous life, Rend had enjoyed watching Crows Zero, but he had lived peacefully in China and had never experienced a real brawl, much less this kind of large-scale battlefield slaughter. In the past, he had relied on Rend Blackhand, but as time passed, his soul had gradually devoured Rend Blackhand's soul. The soul and thoughts from another world had slowly taken the lead; Rend Blackhand's memories had been absorbed, and his soul had become nourishment.

Riding on Gyth's back, Rend felt his adrenaline surge at the sensation of trampling through the enemy camp. A man's ambition lay on the battlefield. The battlefield was where men belonged.

Before him stood the mighty Warchief Thrall, and behind him were hundreds of thousands of reliable Horde warriors. This was where he belonged. He had never wanted to be the one in charge—not only because of the curse of the Horde Warchief, but also because he knew his own limits and was lazy. How could being Warchief compare to how carefree he was now? All he needed to do was ride Gyth, draw Ashkandi, and lead the Horde warriors in crushing their enemies. Scheming and politics should stay far away from me. Rend only wanted to be a brute, leading the Horde's iron hooves to crush every obstacle.

He patted Gyth's neck, and the creature, understanding his intent, immediately took flight and soared above the centaurs' heads. As a dragon, even if he was a failed chromatic dragon, Gyth could still breathe fierce flames. Fire poured from Gyth's mouth toward the nearest centaurs.

The first centaur struck by the dragon breath howled in agony. Gyth was still a drake and could not breathe flames powerful enough to kill in a single strike, but they were enough to burn the victim to death.

After breathing fire, Gyth immediately dove. Even with the body of a drake, he was far more robust than a centaur and no weaker than a full-grown kodo beast.

One centaur after another was sent flying by Gyth's charge. On his back, Rend gripped Ashkandi with both hands and rapidly reaped centaur lives to either side. Ashkandi's sharpness, combined with Rend's height atop Gyth, placed the centaurs' heads perfectly beneath his blade.

Dirty centaur blood sprayed over Rend and Gyth, yet it felt incredibly exhilarating. Man and dragon howled together, venting their indescribable joy.

Man and dragon fearlessly charged into the centaur army. Rend relied on the epic armor he had obtained from Nefarian, while Gyth relied on his hard dragon scales. They were simply bullying the centaurs with their crude weapons. Those makeshift spiked clubs and axes merely left a white mark on Rend's armor if they were any good, or knocked a few scales off Gyth.

The centaurs' vaunted strength, meanwhile, caused little more than slight soreness against Rend's powerful physique and Gyth's drake body. It could not inflict any real harm.

The reckless Rend ran into an ambush by centaur archers. Dozens of archers ahead raised their bows and aimed at him, but Rend was completely unafraid and resolutely commanded Gyth to charge forward.

The centaurs' arrows struck Rend's armor and Gyth's dragon scales with nothing but a series of clangs, all of them blocked. Even in an ambush, the gap in equipment was clear.

Without this equipment protecting him, the cinematic of defending Undercity had already shown the consequence of a warrior being directly hit by archers—High Overlord Saurfang was brought down, even though he was old by then and still possessed the physique of the strongest warrior of that era. Of course, you had to ignore the magic of the words "For the Horde." The Alliance had resurrection; I had the Horde. One sentence could send every Horde member into a bloodlust and restore all their stamina.

After withstanding three volleys from the centaur archers, Rend had already closed in. He swung Ashkandi in a sweeping circle, lopping off the heads of every centaur archer within range. Then he continued to rely on his equipment advantage to bully these centaurs, charging recklessly into the crowd.

The centaurs were swiftly wiped out before the fury of the Horde warriors. With two Horde warriors facing each centaur, the centaurs had no power to fight back at all. Besides, no powerful centaur had remained behind—only a centaur shaman who mistakenly believed Warchief Thrall was purely a caster. When he tried to bully Thrall in melee, Thrall's Doomhammer smashed his head into pulp.

That centaur shaman deserved it for being so thoughtless. He saw Thrall cast a few elemental spells from afar and assumed he was some fragile mage. Kid, your death was not unjust. A plate-armored shaman—there was only one in this world, and that was Thrall. A plate-wearing Enhancement Shaman whose elemental abilities were also absurdly powerful, and he had once been an arena champion before changing classes. Tell me, were you scared? He could tank three volleys from a star-destroying ship. Tell me, who else could do that?

Once the centaurs confirmed that their shaman had been brutally killed, their will to fight vanished completely. They spread their four hooves and fled.

The final results were sixty thousand centaurs killed, twenty thousand captured, and another twenty thousand dead from trampling and mutual slaughter. Fewer than twenty thousand centaurs escaped. The centaur camp had been built on the site of the future Crossroads. Crossroads connected in every direction, so there was no way to stop centaurs determined to flee.

The captured Tauren were rescued as well. "May the Earth Mother watch over you. Thank you for your aid. Shu'halo warriors will forever remember your help, friends." The Tauren prisoners' leader expressed his gratitude to Thrall. At Thrall's invitation, Tauren warriors with a blood-deep hatred for the centaurs joined the Horde army as well, heading south with them to fight the centaurs.

Rend regretted that several thousand Tauren prisoners had been killed by the centaurs. Every Tauren warrior possessed unparalleled strength; in a one-on-one fight, even an orc warrior was no match for a Tauren warrior.

The surviving Tauren warriors held a funeral for the dead Tauren prisoners, wishing for them to return to the embrace of the Earth Mother. Because of the Tauren's size, orc armor was completely unsuitable for them. Even an orc two-handed sword felt like a one-handed sword in a Tauren's hands. They could only gather the army's polearms for the Tauren to use. The kind Tauren were deeply grateful for the Horde's selfless assistance.

Led by the Tauren, Thrall began searching for news of the Tauren tribes, hoping to form an alliance and face the centaurs together. After all, the centaurs were simply too numerous. Even the Horde would have to pay an unbearable price to exterminate them.

Soon, the Horde learned where the previous three hundred thousand centaurs had gone. Heading south along the Golden Road, the Horde came upon an army of three hundred thousand centaurs surrounding one hundred thousand Tauren. Of those one hundred thousand Tauren, fewer than forty thousand were warriors. Protected in their midst were Tauren women, children, elderly, and civilians with no ability to fight.

The Tauren's naturally exceptional physiques gave them unmatched combat power. However, while the Tauren warriors could have broken out of the encirclement, they could not do so. They had to protect the civilians behind them. Thus, forty thousand Tauren warriors, clad in crude leather armor—some with blood-soaked bandages still wrapped around their waists—used makeshift weapons to hold back the centaur assault.