Three Tales of Wolves

Houtu (Earth Elemental Lords): "Azathoth? Damn it, this guy's playing dirty tricks on us."

Zhurong (Elemental Lords): "What do you think? To have risen to this level, this guy is definitely not simple. We must be careful."

The surrounding adventurers didn't care about anything else. They were just there to watch the excitement and plan to take down the lone elemental boss. This announcement seemed to be a signal, so the adventurers who had been observing launched an attack. Of course, they weren't foolish enough to charge directly into the elemental army. Instead, they used ranged attacks to pull the elemental creatures out of the marching ranks and eliminate them one by one.

Zhurong Rong led a group of fire elemental bosses towards the adventurers. They were no match for them, and the forests they passed through turned into seas of fire. The adventurers either died or fled, and in the blink of an eye, they were all gone.

However, the adventurers were like locusts; they could be killed and then resurrected, and they would return even after being driven away. Moreover, the entire elemental army spread for miles, Zhurong alone could not protect them.

They were attacked piecemeal by the surrounding adventurers, and soon lost nearly a thousand troops.

Moreover, because a story event was triggered, these lost troops were truly dead.

Faced with the swarm of adventurers, Zhurong had no choice but to say, "Leave some troops to cover our retreat; consider it feeding the dogs. Let's speed up our advance. Once we enter the Blasted Lands, everything will be fine."

With Zhurong's command, a thousand earth elementals were left behind as the rearguard. There was no other way; earth elementals were slow, so this kind of arduous task had to be assigned to them. Accompanying them were several bosses they usually disliked. Without the bosses, they wouldn't attract the adventurers' attention at all.

Sure enough, as soon as they saw a lone BOSS, the adventurers swarmed around it like a pack of wolves. Several thousand adventurers surrounded and beat a thousand earth elementals, killing them all in less than five minutes. Meanwhile, the elemental army had only gone a short distance.

Soon, the adventurers, having tasted the sweetness of the game, rode up on horseback and caught up.

Zhurong glanced at the adventurers who appeared and disappeared behind him and gave a wry smile. "Damn it, I suddenly remembered the three tales of wolves from Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio."

The adventurer is like the wolf in the story, and you are like the butcher, being chased by the wolf and constantly throwing it bones, but the wolf is never satisfied.

Houtu (Elemental Lords): "What do we do, boss? These adventurers are never going to stop!"

Zhurong (Elemental Lords): "It's alright, you lead the army ahead, I'll cover the rear."

After the troops had passed through the area in front of them, Zhurong stayed behind.

Zhurong (Elemental Lords): "Let This World Burn!" -- Flame Barrier!

Suddenly, he released a scorching heat, and the entire Elemental Lords became like the sun. The surrounding forest rapidly dried up and burned under the scorching heat, and the entire forest was turned into a sea of fire by the Elemental Lords's powerful flames.

Zhurong (Elemental Lords): "Hahaha, look at these adventurers, they still think they can catch up with us."

The words had barely left his mouth when the system notification sounded in his ear again.

World Announcement: The Elemental Legion has suddenly appeared in the Plains of Despair and launched an attack on the Horde's Dreadmaul Hold. Troll Chieftain 'Jirat Blackspear' has called on nearby Horde adventurers to assist the Horde in crushing the evil Elemental Legion's attack.

This system announcement was posted via the world chat, so everyone saw it immediately.

Then immediately another sound was heard.

System notification: The story event [Battle of Dreadmaul Hold] has been triggered. Your Elemental Legion have launched an attack on the Horde in the Plains of Plains of Despair, thus igniting a war with the Horde. Based on your performance in this event, you will gain a certain amount of reputation points.

What?! They're fighting with the Horde again?

At this moment, the earth Elemental Lords Houtu also ran over. "Boss, we were just on our march, not bothering anyone, when a Troll army suddenly charged at us and started throwing spears. Naturally, we had to retaliate, so we destroyed the outer outposts of Dreadmaul Hold. Now, the Horde adventurers have started attacking us too."

(Holy crap, what the hell? How dare they provoke my elemental army? If it were Orgrimmar, I certainly wouldn't dare attack, but a mere Dreadmaul Hold dares to challenge my army? They're practically asking for death! Wait, something's not right here. First the Alliance, then the Horde, could it all be Azathoth's doing?)

In a daze, Zhurong felt as if she had fallen into a large net.

"Look ahead!" A fire elemental suddenly pointed in terror at the sea of fire ahead, only to see the mages among the adventurers constantly summoning Blizzard. As soon as the Blizzard struck, the forest fire below was extinguished, and a long, icy corridor was carved out by the adventurers. Densely packed with adventurers were advancing towards this exit.

"Damn, it's Elemental Lords, and he's all alone! Let's all attack!" someone shouted, and the adventurers immediately sped up.

Facing the menacing adventurer, Zhurong dared not say that he was completely fearless.

"Damn it, let's go!" They carried the Houtu and headed forward.

The Alliance adventurers failed to stop the attackers, and the Horde adventurers joined the ranks of the attackers, causing the army to suffer continuous casualties.

Zhurong also realized that staying behind to fight the adventurers in a war of attrition was pointless, so she could only lead her army on a frantic march.

By the time this large army finally crossed the Plains of Despair and arrived at the Blasted Lands, the force had lost more than half its strength, leaving only seven or eight thousand men.

Despite the formidable size of the 20,000 elemental army, each adventurer managed to wipe them out in a few kills, thanks to the protection of the Elemental Lords. Only two-thirds were lost. However, many elemental bosses were still lured out and eliminated by the adventurers, especially the NPCs. Unlike players, they weren't as adept at strategic maneuvering; they were easily lured away and quickly surrounded and overwhelmed if separated from their units. Moreover, since these deaths occurred during a story event, they were all scripted deaths. Fortunately, the remaining 7,000 to 8,000 were mostly elite units, maintaining over half of the army's combat strength. With many bosses falling behind, the adventurers stayed behind to compete for kills, leading to a fight Horde and Alliance adventurers. Finally, they escaped the dreadful swarms of locusts.

The only saving grace is that the Water Elemental Legion Wind Elemental Legion, since they traveled by water, should have suffered no losses.

However, the idea was good, but the reality was harsh.

When the army finally arrived at the Blasted Lands, Gonggong and his Water Elemental Legion were already waiting there. The two armies joined together, but Zhurong found that the number of the Fengshui Legion was also a bit small, only about ten thousand.

Zhurong (Elemental Lords): "What happened? What happened? How come you only have this small force left?"

Gonggong (Frost Titan): "Don't even mention it. We were attacked by Azathoth as soon as we landed on the Broken Shore. Although we eventually repelled them, we lost nearly half of our forces."

Zhurong (Elemental Lords): "How is this possible? Where are our spies? Why didn't they report anything?"

Gonggong (Frost Titan): "Azathoth didn't send out the Water Elemental Legion, but instead deployed a combined force of merfolk, Scarlet Crusade, Undead, and Night Elf."

Zhurong (Elemental Lords): "This, how is this possible? I can understand Undead, but undead—okay, maybe mercenaries, the Scarlet Crusade ...when did the Blasted Lands have the Scarlet Crusade? And what the Night Elf?"

Gonggong gave a wry smile. "I can only say that we underestimated Azathoth. Oh, by the way, the Night Elf were led by an eight-star hero, Maiev Shadowsong."

Zhurong felt somewhat numb; the bad news just kept coming one after another.

However, he still did not give up.

Zhurong (Elemental Lords): "It's alright. Heroes are much weaker than bosses. An eight-star hero is at most a five-skull-level boss, and a humanoid one at that. If you lower the level again, it's only a four-skull-level boss. We have over a dozen Elemental Lords here, what are we afraid of?"

Despite her fearlessness, Zhurong understood that with the ebb and flow of power, the gap between the two sides was now small, and even if she caught up, it was hard to say whether she could win.

Zhurong (Elemental Lords): "We'll slow down and continue advancing, while sending out a large number of wind elementals to scout. As long as they've all entered by the time we reach the Dark Portal, we'll still have scared him away. Then we'll go back and destroy the Dark Portal. Whatever Azathoth's purpose is in Draenor, let him stay there. Then we'll slaughter all the Alliance and Horde camps in the Blasted Lands, gain some reputation points, and it won't be a loss."

However, things rarely go as planned. Soon, scouts reported that Azathoth and his large army had been spotted ahead, though the number of troops seemed to be a bit excessive.

Zhurong didn't care much, or rather, he had no choice but to retreat. If he withdrew halfway, how could he face anyone if word got out? He still held onto a sliver of hope that Azathoth's high-end forces weren't that strong, so there was still a chance of victory.

So they had no choice but to grit their teeth and continue forward. Soon, the army arrived at the Dark Portal, and from afar, they could see Azathoth's densely packed army already waiting in battle.

Just as Gonggong had said, the army before them was quite complex in composition.

At the very center of the army was a massive Elemental Legion, numbering around 15,000. To the left were the Scarlet Expeditionary Force, the Night Elf Expeditionary Force, and adventurers from the Alliance faction. To the right were the Undead Legion, the Troll Legion Merfolk Legion, and adventurers from the Horde faction.

The sky was filled with countless gargoyles, frost bone dragons, Dragon Clan of all kinds, Troll bat riders, and hippogriff riders, stretching as far as the eye could see.

The entire army probably numbers around 30,000 to 40,000.