Breakthrough of Bloodlust and a Tauren Warrior's Technique

What would it look like if three hundred thousand Horde warriors charging under Bloodlust came rushing at you? Probably only those Alliance veterans who had survived the Second War had witnessed such terror.

What were hundreds of thousands of Horde warriors charging under Bloodlust? They were terror, death, nightmares. Under that terror, you either died, or lived on with an inescapable nightmare etched into your mind.

At the height of its power, the Alliance had millions of allied troops, yet they had been routed by hundreds of thousands of bloodthirsty orcs. With millions of Alliance soldiers, they not only failed to stop a Horde force one-tenth their size, but were nearly utterly defeated by them. At the cost of several tens of thousands, the Horde shattered the Alliance army and slew more than a hundred thousand Alliance soldiers.

Now, decades later, the ones facing that terror again were the centaurs of Kalimdor. Although centaur warriors held an advantage over Alliance soldiers in combat ability, that time there had been millions in the Alliance, while here there were only three hundred thousand centaurs. They did not even hold a numerical advantage over the Horde.

The centaurs, who bullied the weak and ran rampant across Kalimdor, had never encountered such a terrifying force. With the night elves remaining hidden and the Tauren population too small, the centaurs had enjoyed being Kalimdor's overlords for far too long. As the old saying went, the weak feared the strong, the strong feared the ruthless, and the ruthless feared those who did not fear death.

The centaurs were ruthless, while the Horde feared no death.

The centaur khans were shaken by that momentum as well, but their formidable strength forced them to calm down. Their brains, which had rarely ever been used, began working for once. They knew that if they could not organize a defense and a rout began, everything would be over. The bloodthirsty orcs would be impossible to stop, and the Tauren warriors would not let such an opportunity pass.

Thus, the centaur khans raced about, shouting orders while forcibly suppressing the fear in their hearts. They could only barely keep the centaur troops from breaking into flight.

As the Horde warriors drew closer, the centaurs facing the Horde's charge collapsed the instant they saw the savage expressions and overwhelming momentum of the bloodthirsty orcs. They no longer obeyed the orders of the centaur khans they had once followed so readily. Their hearts now held only terror and the thought of escape. Only by fleeing this place, fleeing these demons, could they survive. Otherwise, death was their only path.

The centaurs at the front desperately shoved their way backward, but those behind them did not move due to the khans' orders. The battle line the centaur khans had barely maintained collapsed outright before the Horde that had frightened them out of their wits. Once the first centaur fled, the rout became like ocean waves, utterly unstoppable. The centaur khans cursed furiously as they killed one fleeing kinsman after another, but in the minds of the fleeing centaurs, running meant they would live as long as they were not caught. Not running meant certain death.

The centaurs tore apart their own lines, and their morale plunged to rock bottom with the onset of the rout.

The Horde warriors descended like tigers among sheep. Two-legged tigers slaughtered four-legged lambs to their hearts' content. Seeing that the rout had begun, the centaur khans decided to step forward and use their own formidable strength to salvage the situation and intimidate the collapsing centaur army.

The Tauren warrior saw through the centaur khans' intentions and decisively charged out. He lowered his body, transforming into a raging bull, and used his horns to toss aside the centaurs blocking his path as he rushed to intercept the centaur khans. "Blood and thunder, warriors of Shuhada, counterattack!" The Tauren warrior possessed not only great martial strength, but also the battlefield awareness and judgment of a seasoned veteran.

Rend and the others understood the Tauren warrior's intention as well and began rapidly moving to support him.

Rend once again ordered Gyth to charge wildly ahead. This time, he did not dare test whether Gyth's dragon scales could withstand the bows of the centaur khans. If anything went wrong, Rend would have no way out after falling into the centaur horde.

With Gyth's help, Rend was clearly faster than the other Horde powerhouses. After all, even a drake was comparable to a kodo beast, and its charging force far surpassed that of a dire wolf.

With a fearless Heroic Leap, the Tauren warrior jumped into the encirclement of seven centaur khans. The instant he landed, he unleashed a Whirlwind, forcing back the nearby khans and splitting apart the centaur khans who had originally been grouped together.

Being separated did not mean the pressure was reduced, because the centaur khans now had more room to surround and kill the Tauren warrior.

The Tauren warrior whirled his spear so densely that not even water could pass through. Beneath the overwhelming force he wielded lay superb combat technique. Relying on both skill and brute strength, he alone stubbornly held off the centaur khans' joint assault. Though he was at a disadvantage, the centaur khans could do nothing to him, and so the Tauren warrior became locked in combat with them.

Seeing that the Tauren warrior had stopped the centaur khans, Rend decisively had Gyth take flight. The arrows of ordinary centaurs could not possibly pierce Gyth's scaled defense, while any centaur khan who tried to cast a spell or fire an arrow would be heavily targeted by the Tauren warrior.

With that, Rend was able to rush over in support. Though Gyth was only a drake, the talents he inherited from chromatic dragons gave him flying speed far beyond others of his kind. The vast centaur army below swiftly blurred into afterimages.

Upon reaching the battle, Rend leaped down from the sky, aiming for the only spellcaster among the centaur khans.

Among the seven centaur khans were one spellcaster, two archers, and four warriors. Clearly, the spellcaster held the most distinguished status. It was precisely because of this that the Tauren warrior had used offense as defense, constantly targeting the centaur shaman khan and making the other centaur khans hesitate. That was how he had managed to withstand the attacks of so many opponents.

To protect this high-ranking centaur shaman khan, two centaur warrior khans decisively withdrew from the encirclement of the Tauren warrior and moved to deal with Rend.

Neither of these centaur khans was weaker than Rend, but he chose the same approach as the Tauren warrior, constantly targeting the centaur shaman khan. He barely managed to restrain the two centaur khans.

With the pressure on him greatly reduced, the Tauren warrior unleashed his true power. It turned out he had been concealing his strength. Before, his fighting style had always been one of overwhelming force crushing all techniques. Even while surrounded, he had only displayed somewhat refined combat skills. But now that the Tauren warrior had fully let loose, he showed Rend why he used a spear rather than twin hammers or the totem pole on his back.

Thrust, sweep, cleave. Simple movements, yet when executed in his hands, they carried immense power. Rend felt that this was agility belonging only to an elven warrior, yet it was displayed by a Tauren. In his hands, the spear seemed to come alive, becoming an aggressive venomous snake that would bite at the slightest lapse in attention.