For the Draenei, who had mastered Crystal Translocation technology, withdrawing from Shattrath was no difficult task. Compared with portals, which required exceptionally high magical skill and immense expense to construct, Crystal Translocation held enormous advantages when transporting large numbers of troops—especially over short distances of only a few hundred miles.
This was particularly true after nearly a year of airship repairs, during which Oshu'gun's translocation Crystal Tower had also been specially reinforced and enhanced.
They could have fled in the shortest possible time before the Horde noticed anything, leaving behind two empty cities.
But the Horde was not merely a band of barbarians—or rather, their leaders were not.
Although the Horde itself was extremely backward in civilization and technology, possessing nothing but brute courage, the Burning Legion behind them was not.
Deceiving the Orcs for a short time, even deceiving their Warchief, Blackhand, was easy enough. Though Blackhand was powerful, he was not known for his intellect or strategy.
Deceiving Gul'dan was not as difficult as one might imagine either. This ambitious warlock was extraordinarily gifted, sinister, and cunning, but as an Orc, his vision was still far too limited. His ambition to unite the Horde was unimaginably grand to the Orcs, yet it did not change the fact that his sights remained confined to Draenor itself.
Fleeing Draenor aboard an airship... the Orc warlock had never even considered such a possibility. Perhaps he had once wondered where Kil'jaeden and the demons came from, but his gaze had never turned toward the sky.
The only one they needed to worry about was Kil'jaeden.
But Kil'jaeden was not without weaknesses.
The young Yrel did not understand Kil'jaeden.
In truth, as one of the generations born after the Draenei arrived on Draenor, Yrel knew very little of the Draenei's past or of