The white Hawkstrider, enchanted with Slow Fall, raced into the camp.
Seeing Herad arrive in person, the Arcane Scavenger stopped absorbing holy energy while it was teaching Turalyon a lesson.
It carried Turalyon over to Herad.
Dangling from the Arcane Scavenger's grip like a dead dog, Turalyon looked nothing like an important figure.
According to the game's story, he was the great hero who led the Allied Forces to crush the Orcs after Sir Lothar fell in battle at Blackrock Mountain.
Later, he even launched a counteroffensive against Planet Draenor, becoming one of the renowned five heroes of the Dark Portal.
Herad looked over the filthy blond man, then turned to Alleria, who had come over to watch the spectacle.
"Big sis, is this Turalyon? He doesn't look like much!"
Alleria was puzzled by Herad's question.
"Hasn't Turalyon always looked like this? What else is supposed to be special about him?"
"Oh, I was just curious. He's the lieutenant of a legendary commander like Sir Lothar, after all!"
After poking fun at Turalyon, Herad pressed a hand against the Arcane Scavenger's egg-shaped body and examined the magical energy stored inside.
Most of the energy stored in the Arcane Scavenger came from the Mana Wyrms' unaspected magical energy.
This unaspected magical energy was extremely placid.
To his magical senses, it looked like clear water.
The holy energy absorbed from Turalyon, a First-Generation Paladin, was a mass of dazzling golden liquid.
The golden liquid did not blend with the clear liquid, but neither did they clash.
The two coexisted in harmony.
However, just because these two kinds of energy did not clash did not mean absorbing other kinds would be safe.
If it absorbed some death or shadow energy as well, the Arcane Scavenger might well explode.
Herad added a rule to the Arcane Scavenger's database forbidding it from indiscriminately absorbing other kinds of energy.
While studying the Arcane Scavenger's energy absorption process, Herad did not let it completely drain the holy energy from Turalyon's body.
He ordered Turalyon to pray to the holy light with all his might so that more holy energy would flow into him.
That would allow him to calculate how much holy energy the holy light supplied to Turalyon over that period.
A High Elf mage had appeared out of nowhere and started ordering him to do this and then that.
Naturally, Turalyon had no desire to meekly cooperate.
But after seeing some of the sinister designs Herad displayed, he promptly chose to cooperate with the experiment.
Turalyon sensed profound malice in the cruel design that stuffed disabled soldiers into war machines so they could continue serving their kingdoms.
The blueprint described this brutal war machine as the ultimate expression of a soldier's loyalty to his kingdom.
But not being allowed to retire even after becoming disabled was simply too cruel!
Damn it, if the kings saw this blueprint, wouldn't we soldiers be in for a miserable time?
To safeguard the welfare of countless soldiers, Turalyon decided to make a small sacrifice.
"You must guarantee that this blueprint will never be made public."
Herad said with utter sincerity, "Don't worry. This blueprint will never appear in the human world."
In truth, neither StarCraft's Dragoons nor Warhammer 40,000's Dreadnoughts were something the current human kingdoms could afford.
The cost of building a single such war machine could equip an entire army!
Who would sink that much military funding into a handful of war machines?
If those war machines rebelled, the losses would be enormous!
Herad's design would never be viable in the human world.
Turalyon did not understand that crucial point.
He chose to compromise with the villain and prayed to the holy light as Herad instructed.
After taking precise measurements, Herad discovered that Turalyon's steady output of holy energy could power the Arcane Scavenger at full capacity.
Unfortunately, his flesh-and-blood body could make use of less than a tenth of that holy energy.
That doomed him to be utterly suppressed by the Arcane Scavenger, with no chance of resisting.
If he underwent Lightforging by Xe'ra, the Mother of Holy Light, as he did in the game, he might be able to match the Arcane Scavenger in strength.
A mortal would need a powerful magical weapon to defeat an Arcane Scavenger.
Otherwise, how could war machines costing at least a hundred thousand gold coins demonstrate their might?
After testing the strength of a First-Generation Paladin's holy energy, Herad gained some understanding of these unkillable cockroaches' capabilities.
Even if the later, mass-produced versions of Paladins were somewhat inferior in quality, they would still be an extremely powerful hero class.
If Paladins could be converted into war machines, their combat power would be absolutely tremendous!
At that thought, Herad glanced at Uther nearby.
This First-Generation Paladin, known as the Lightbringer, very likely had more than ten times Turalyon's holy energy reserves and recovery rate!
If he used Uther as an energy source, he could probably power a giant mech.
He could not power a hundred-meter-tall mech like those in Pacific Rim, but a fifty-meter-tall one would certainly be no problem!
As Uther watched the situation unfold, a sudden chill ran through him.
Puzzled, he scanned his surroundings but found nothing suspicious.
The feeling soon vanished.
Uther merely assumed he had been too tense and imagined it.
Herad mentally labeled Uther a super energy source, then quickly put him out of his mind.
At this stage, he was more interested in testing the Paladins' various parameters.
Reduced to a testing tool, Turalyon seethed but did not dare complain.
Nobody wanted to be stuffed into a tin can and fight for his country in such an awful way.
Turalyon's dedication was still lacking.
Anything less than complete loyalty was absolute disloyalty!
He was destined to be nothing more than a miserable testing tool.
While Herad studied Paladins, the Horde across the sea had finished its preparations.
They repaired their damaged warships and made a few simple improvements.
For instance, they installed decking beneath the overhead cover to protect the sailors in the lower hold.
They also installed several partitions inside the hold, so a single cannonball would not kill or wound a dozen sailors.
Of course, their main defensive measure was still the handful of Red Dragons in the fleet.
Those enormous creatures, each over ten meters long, could breathe fire of terrifying temperatures.
If the human fleet dared return, its total annihilation would be inevitable!
Controlling these enormous creatures was no easy task, however.
Only the Dragonmaw Clan's finest handlers could unleash their formidable combat power.
Having gained control of these rulers of the skies, the Dragonmaw Clan's standing within the Horde had soared, allowing it to stand on equal footing with the great clans.
Looking at the Red Dragons among the fleet, Orgrim felt deeply grateful for his earlier decision.
Had he not spared the Dragonmaw Clan's chieftain back then, the clan might never have had the chance to control the Red Dragons.
Without the Red Dragons' help, the Horde could never have made it across the sea safely.
Orgrim was a warrior through and through, trusting only the Warhammer in his hands.
Yet at that moment, he suddenly felt that fate mattered too.
Lost in his reflections on fate, Orgrim failed to notice a glint in the distant grass.
Hiding in the grass was a short, green-skinned figure holding a telescope.
He was a member of the Goblin team that had left after making its dirty money.
Besides taking the Orcs' dirty money, the Goblin team also sold intelligence on them to the human Allied Forces.
They transmitted encrypted messages through a portable radio.
Their intelligence was precisely what had allowed the Kul Tiras fleet to intercept the Orc fleet earlier.
After all, even if they sent intelligence right in front of the Orcs, the Orcs would have no idea what was happening.
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