Preparing for a Night Raid

Along the way through the Quilboar tunnels, they encountered many Quilboar attacks, but before the elite Horde warriors, all resistance was futile. Most importantly, the majority of the Quilboar had been summoned to Razorfen to surround the enemy who had stolen their sacred relic.

The largest group they encountered numbered roughly five thousand Quilboar warriors, but they were swiftly wiped out by the Horde. To ensure the Quilboar would not go looking for trouble with the centaurs, they adhered to one principle: kill every one they encountered.

With Magatha and Hamuul working together, Hamuul used the power of a druid to make underground thorns grow and block the passageways. Then Magatha summoned earth elementals to fill the thorn-covered entrances. With the combined power of thorns and earth elementals, the sealed passages became highly resilient. It would take the Quilboar a long time even to open a small gap afterward. They only needed to block the main routes and delay them until the decisive battle was over. After all, there were simply too many Quilboar underground. They came upon a massive cavern housing hundreds of thousands of them. Though most were old or young and the warriors had already left, it still took the Horde warriors considerable time. Even after suffering some casualties, they could not stop the panicked Quilboar from fleeing in every direction. There were too many tunnels and too many Quilboar; it was simply impossible to wipe them out completely.

They could only ask the two powerful figures, Magatha and Hamuul, to seal as many passages as possible and delay the Quilboar from reporting that they had passed through here to that old hag, Karga Spine, before the decisive battle. Otherwise, that cunning old pig might discover them.

It was impossible to tell the time underground. Though sunlight shone through many ventilation shafts, the tunnels remained mostly dim. For safety reasons, the army did not use torches. Being discovered was one concern, but who knew how much marsh gas had accumulated from fermented feces here? If they passed through an area with excessive marsh gas and set it off, they would all be finished. Even though the Quilboar burrows were sturdy, it would still cause needless casualties among the Horde warriors. Once trapped here, they could be drowned beneath a tide of frenzied Quilboar.

In the end, due to the confined tunnels, their size, and the Quilboar's various ambushes, the Horde lost several thousand warriors in the tunnels. At the same time, they killed an unknown number of tens of thousands of Quilboar. Though there were many water sources in the tunnels, the Horde warriors had no time to wash. They were all covered in a layer of mud armor made from a mixture of sludge and blood.

When they emerged from the Quilboar tunnels and set foot on the land of Mulgore, Rokhan, who came out first, discovered that the sky outside was already filled with stars. Before they had entered the tunnels, it had not yet been noon. The Horde warriors had traveled without pause the entire way, showing just how long this tunnel was.

The closer they got to the exit, the more the fresh breeze from the Mulgore plains blew into the tunnels, and the stench of fermenting Quilboar dung faded considerably. Rend could finally tolerate the smell. The Horde army, which had been running and killing nonstop for half a day, was also somewhat exhausted. He needed to replenish the nutrients he had vomited up earlier as well, so he ordered the entire Horde army to rest in a large cavern near the exit. On one hand, this would let the warriors, whose nerves had been taut all along, relax a little. After such prolonged action, their bodies were already aching. Their mount companions also needed rest. The Kodo Beasts were fine, possessing endurance comparable to the Tauren, but the dire wolves desperately needed meat. To keep moving quickly, the warriors had been forced to restrain their companions from feeding on Quilboar corpses along the way.

Rend felt as though he had been starving for days. His body was so weak that it felt as if he had not had a drop of water for days. Dehydration had drained most of the strength from his powerful body. He picked up a bag of water and dried tallstrider jerky, stuffed his mouth full, and swallowed it down with water.

After several hours of rest, Rend felt strength return to his arms. The warriors and their mount companions had also recovered their stamina. What awaited them outside was another large Quilboar settlement. Rokhan's scouting suggested there could be hundreds of thousands of Quilboar. This would be another brutal battle. They would have to fight their way out while facing more than a hundred thousand Quilboar in the deepest part of the settlement.

Rend did not want to remain here for even another second. Although Mulgore's fresh air was blowing in, it only suppressed the stench. All Rend wanted now was to breathe fresh air properly.

Because of the size of the tunnels, Rend divided the troops into several groups. Each of his powerful subordinates—The Saurfang brothers, Samuro, Rokhan, Chief Ripi, Hamuul, Magatha, and Rend himself—led a force out through a different exit. They also lit torches here, since the marsh gas level was already very low. Their plan was to charge out together and launch attacks from multiple directions before the Quilboar could react, preventing them from judging the Horde's overall strength. The torches would also set the Quilboar camp ablaze and create chaos, leaving them unable to pursue.

Moreover, in Mulgore, arguably the finest place in Kalimdor, with its naturally abundant resources and excellent terrain, these unsuspecting Quilboar had clearly grown accustomed to ruling here. They were bound to be lax, especially when the enemy was emerging from the supposedly safest Quilboar tunnels. Fire attacks might yield unexpected results. Although most of those likely to burn to death would be the old and young, who in Azeroth regarded Quilboar as intelligent beings? If they did this to other intelligent races, they might be accused of indiscriminately slaughtering innocents. But not in a Quilboar settlement. It would also spare the future Tauren much trouble when settling here. Otherwise, these hundreds of thousands of Quilboar would continually drain Tauren strength, forcing them to keep an elite force stationed here to defend against them.

Mulgore was naturally blessed, with plentiful water and grass and rich mineral resources. As long as the Great Gate of Mulgore was firmly defended, it would become an impregnable giant fortress. It was the perfect place for a simple, largely nonaggressive, semi-nomadic race like the Tauren to rest and prosper. As the Horde's rightful leaders, if Rend wanted to bring Mulgore completely under his control, he had to help eliminate the Quilboar problem. Not only did they tie down a Tauren force, but today proved that Rend's group could use the tunnels. Who knew whether other hostile forces might pull the same trick in the future? Naturally, every risk had to be eliminated, turning Mulgore into the Horde's most stable territory and using its abundant resources to supply the entire Horde.

In the future, the Venture Company absolutely could not be allowed in. Whether in Mulgore or the Stonetalon Mountains, those abundant resources should be used to arm the Horde. Even if I cannot mine them all, I do not need scavengers like the Venture Company destroying the environment.

The Quilboar needed no reason. This race of creatures should be exterminated. Along the way, Rend had discovered that their pots contained every living thing they could catch, including intelligent beings and even the corpses of dead Quilboar from their own kind. It was utterly inhuman, so barbaric. Eating people could perhaps be called contempt for other intelligent races, but they did not even spare their own kind. They only knew how to eat and translate. What meaning was there in keeping such a degenerate race alive? For Azeroth, send them all to their deaths.