The Question of Stance

The system's mission was to enter Fire Plume Ridge and kill ten Flame Invaders, fifty Living Flames, and one hundred Scorching Elements.

The trolls had been inside Fire Plume Ridge for two days. Excluding the five Living Flames whose flames Tonatiuh had snuffed out and whose cores had been tossed into backpacks,

they had killed eleven Living Flames so far. As for the weaker Scorching Flames, forty-five had already perished at the trolls' hands.

Only the Flame Invaders remained. These elemental creatures were likely the strongest beings here, yet none had been found so far.

Because of water supplies and intelligence, Tonatiuh was unwilling to let the trolls venture deeper into Fire Plume Ridge.

The outskirts of Fire Plume Ridge did not seem particularly dangerous for now, but the mountain was far too hot and evaporated moisture too quickly. Even the physically enhanced Zutona Trolls would die of thirst inside without water.

This small legion of over five hundred elite trolls had brought enough water and food to last roughly two or three days after entering the mountain range.

Food was not much of an issue. Trolls could endure hunger well enough. Water, however, was a major problem. Setting aside whether they had enough containers, the more water they carried, the faster it evaporated. With so many people drinking, no amount of water would be enough.

Unless they had mages or shamanic priests skilled at summoning water elementals, the trolls would have an extremely difficult time going deeper, and they might lose many elites.

Unfortunately, Zutona had neither of those professions. And the last thing Tonatiuh wanted right now was to lose troops.

In his mind, every troll citizen mattered greatly during this early stage.

It was not because he was some saint.

Rather, aside from roughly two thousand troll children who were simply too young to provide the power of faith, every other troll in Zutona had become a devoted follower of the two Loa he had fabricated. Many among them were devout believers and fanatics.

They provided a tremendous amount of faith power.

The system could use faith power to perform many unbelievable operations. It could even be said that more than half of the system's mighty capabilities required faith power to achieve.

This manifested power of consciousness was what Tonatiuh valued most right now, even more than the growth of his own personal strength.

Tonatiuh had always had a dream.

It was to lead thousands upon thousands of troops in a Charge and swarm his enemies with sheer numbers. Just think about it: even Sargeras could be ganged up on and sealed away, while Archimonde could be blown to death by little sprites. In Azeroth's worldview, no matter how powerful an individual was, if they encountered a swarm tactic whose quality was not too far below their own, they could only be drowned beneath the masses in helpless confusion.

Of course.

The difference in quality could not be too great.

For example, when facing Archimonde, although the little sprites were vastly weaker, there were enough of them, and their self-destruction could detonate the Well of Eternity. Using the Well's power, they blew Archimonde to death.

Although Archimonde was not directly killed by the little sprites, they were the fuse for the bomb. Without them, the Well of Eternity could not have been detonated.

So that could also be considered a form of swarm tactics.

And speaking of swarm tactics in Azeroth, one had to mention the Scourge, which had yet to be born. When it came to swarm tactics—no, undead swarm tactics—the Scourge was undoubtedly the most skillful and most despair-inducing user of them.

After the Argent Crusade, the Horde, and the Alliance cleverly killed Arthas, they still had to create a new Lich King to control the Scourge. Only then could they prevent it from continuing to harm the world. The Lich King might be dead, but if the endless sea of undead went uncontrolled, it would still destroy civilization.

Tonatiuh wanted to develop his own troll swarm tactics, but by normal means, by following Azeroth's native historical progression, it would be very, very difficult.

But the system was different.

As long as an ordinary troll warrior was devout enough and had gone through several battles,

he could use faith power to gain enlightenment from the "Loa," instantly advancing into a divine warrior capable of wielding powerful, Holy Light-like strength. This was a qualitative leap, like suddenly progressing from the age of cold weapons into the early age of firearms. It vastly increased combat power.

To achieve all this,

two things were needed: the system and enough faith power. Of course, there were other prerequisites as well, such as numbers and sufficient faith...

Faith power was very important.

An adult, devout troll believer could currently provide the false "God Tona" and "God Tiu" with roughly 0.5 to 1 unit of faith power each month. With Zutona's total population of 15,000 trolls, they could basically provide eight to ten thousand units of faith power every month.

For Tonatiuh,

things had reached the point where every dead troll would make his heart ache.

He did not want the trolls to suffer losses. Unless losing one troll could yield benefits greater than having two trolls alive, Tonatiuh would not let them act recklessly.

Honestly,

Tonatiuh had no position right now.

If Sargeras descended at this moment and offered him power equal to that of Archimonde or Kil'jaeden, he might immediately kneel and become the Burning Legion's third leader. Or if the Void Lords were merciful enough to promise him Ai-chan for training, then let her become his wife after she was born, Tonatiuh might immediately choose to become an archbishop of the Twilight Legion...

But right now, he had nothing.

So he would only develop his own forces. As for the future direction—he would deal with that later.

Who said the Void Lords had to be evil? Who said the Titans had to be righteous? Ever since seeing the Mother of Tiles forcibly infuse someone in the game, fail, and get blown apart by a blind old man who had been blind for ten thousand years, Tonatiuh had harbored doubts about the simplistic theme of Void versus Light.

Given a certain group of supreme creators' ability to retcon their own lore, even a blind old man who committed genocide could be whitewashed. What could not be whitewashed?

What if one day, when a new expansion came out, they jumped out and said: the Void Lords were actually good guys. They had only chosen to corrupt Ai-chan because they wanted to fight enemies from other planes, universes, and heavens, hoping that Ai-chan, who would become the strongest Titan, could protect this universe together with them, blah blah blah...

Retconning was addictive!

In summary—it was a question of where your ass sat!

Whichever side your ass sat on, you had to consider that side's interests. Right now, Tonatiuh's ass sat only with himself and Zutona, so naturally, he would only consider the interests of himself and Zutona.

It was precisely because of this somewhat selfish view that Tonatiuh did not want the trolls to suffer heavy losses right now. The trolls he had brought were elites with formidable combat power. Most were fanatics, and the faith power they provided was extremely substantial.

Tonatiuh turned his head.

He saw that nearly every troll behind him was drenched in sweat. Even the voodoo shooters who could use some simple frost magic were no exception.

There were too many fire elementals in Fire Plume Ridge, and they were too powerful. Frost magic was also greatly weakened here.

Only Tonatiuh himself was different.

When the wandering fire elementals in the air encountered his body, they were automatically bounced away as though they had struck a barrier. He did not feel hot at all.

Unless they were naturally formed, stable elements without conscious awareness—such as naturally lit flames or naturally formed rainwater—anything that encountered him would be expelled and rejected, just like the fire elementals of Fire Plume Ridge.

Fire Plume Ridge was clearly not naturally formed. There was no reason for the Titans to place such a massive volcano inside their laboratory.

As things stood,

among the trolls, only Tonatiuh himself was completely unaffected by this environment.

An idea came to him.

The story was recommended today. Please send some recommendation votes my way—I hope it can make it onto the new book rankings or something...