After ten years, the Zanchul Defense Conference convened once more.
Ten years earlier, the Zandalari Empire had become mired in a war against the Blood Trolls of Nazmir. King Rastakhan had followed Prophet Zul's proposal, mobilizing the imperial army to encircle Nazmir in an attempt to reclaim it from the Blood Trolls.
At the outbreak of the war, every Blood Troll took up arms, while their witch doctors shrouded the entire swamp rainforest in blood magic.
With powerful loa protecting the Zandalari Empire, the war had gone reasonably well at first. The army captured several Blood Troll temples and pushed the front all the way to Nazwatha.
Agna, the leader of the Blood Trolls, gathered all their witch doctors and used more than ten thousand of her people to create a blood plague.
Every Blood Troll carrying the plague became an unstable time bomb.
Before long, the imperial army was retreating on every front. The flames of war spread from Nazmir to Zuldazar.
The southern pass of Zuldazar thus earned its name: Blood Pass.
The war continued for several months, until internal strife broke out among the Blood Trolls. With King Rastakhan's help, Agna's daughter Atina seized the opportunity to usurp her mother. She stopped the production of the blood plague and pacified the Blood Troll civilians.
When the war ended, Rastakhan saw that the Troll Empire, which had only just begun its revival, had once again lost those budding hopes to war. In a fit of fury, he dissolved the Zanchul Defense Council outright and halted all outward expansion and other operations.
Zul was quite surprised when he heard the news.
The Blood Troll war had driven a wedge between him and King Rastakhan. That only made Zul all the more curious about the king's change.
On the day