Battle

Orgrim's speech was simple, brutal, and to the point. No flowery language, no beating around the bush. He didn't need to wax poetic about the riches of the northern continent; someone else would naturally fill in those glorious details.

He only needed to tell his people where the enemy was, and his compatriots, now brimming with a savage, almost uncontrollable violence after quaffing the demon's blood, would swarm over to kill, to conquer, to utterly destroy.

Unlike most orcs, who were about as subtle as a charging kodo, Orgrim appeared remarkably calm and sober. He was playing chess, not checkers.

Not only did he meticulously study the map, poring over every contour and detail, and confirm the conditions of the nearby seas, but he had also begun to learn the common language of humans ever since he left Stormwind. Orgrim had specifically kept a family of human captives, threatening their relatives with a grim fate, and forced an old woman to teach him the common tongue. It was a brutal, pragmatic approach to linguistics.

Starting by pointing at the simplest objects, such as a stone, Orgrim compared the pronunciation and confirmed his translation results one by one, a painstaking process.

This was incredibly boring, mind-numbingly tedious, and utterly beyond the comprehension of most orcs, who preferred smashing things to conjugating verbs.

But during this arduous crossing, Orgrim achieved tangible results. He was getting somewhere.

He saw the plotted route of the transport fleet on a captured military map, a clear path to victory.

He was acutely aware of the devastating power of the huge human warships. Their bombardments could easily blow away more than ten orcs at the same time, turning them into green mist.

The orcs had no power to fight back at sea. They were like fish out of water, utterly helpless.

Therefore, the route chosen by Orgrim was a stroke of twisted genius: to start from the Baladin Bay opposite the wetlands, head northeast, reach the shallow sea area with quite a lot of underwater reefs – a natural minefield for larger ships – then go along the coast from Stromgarde to Dun Garok, all the way north, and finally reach the eastern beach next to Southshore Town.

In this way, a large force could hide from humanity's most powerful naval fleet, slipping past them like ghosts in the night.

Orgrim had considered the possibility of humans recruiting murlocs and naga to serve them, but he believed their numbers were too small, too insignificant, to pose a real threat to the Horde. They were small fry.

He did not intend to land a large force on the eastern beach, because the mountains there were steeper, a natural choke point, and the entire beach was within the range of human bows and crossbows. Landing there would be a miserable victory even if they won, a Pyrrhic victory bought with too much blood.

The western coast of Southshore was a different kettle of fish entirely. There were more rocks on the coast, which was convenient for hiding and protection, offering natural cover for a landing force.

There were simply too few smart people in the Horde, so Orgrim, the lone wolf, could only calculate the departure and arrival time himself, relying on his own wits.

His calculations were very precise, down to the minute. If there were no accidents along the way, no unforeseen hiccups, the first batch of transport ships would arrive late at night, under the cloak of darkness.

After the decoy fleet had done its job, the main force would land around 4:30 in the morning. As long as the main force could land successfully, when the Horde's main force arrived in Southshore, it would be early morning, with the sun just beginning to peek over the horizon.

The warriors of the Horde would have a whole day to deal with the humans. Orgrim believed that with the orcs' unparalleled physical strength and endurance, their sheer, brutal tenacity, the weaker humans would be worn down and destroyed in a few hours, even if they could defend themselves for a while with fortifications. They'd be ground to dust.

Orgrim believed that with every fiber of his being.

In fact, on the Alliance side, Admiral Daelin Proudmoore, who had already set sail with his fleet, slammed the table and cursed a blue streak when he heard the time when the Horde passed the sniper position: "Doesn't this make our entire fleet a glorified mascot on the sea!? We'll be sitting ducks!"

Looking at the dark, impenetrable sea in the distance through his monocular telescope, Daelin felt a surge of pure, unadulterated irritation. He was chomping at the bit, ready for a fight.

"The leader of the orcs is obviously not a reckless man who can only charge headfirst. You have met your match, Daelin." The one who spoke was a beautiful woman with long golden hair and tall, pointed ears, standing next to Daelin. This was a position closer to Daelin than even the royal guards, all of which showed that this elven wizard had a special, almost intimate status.

Indeed, the High Elf mage was named Gina Goldensword, the widely known, almost openly acknowledged, lover of King Daelin. It was an open secret, whispered in the halls of power.

"Any news?" Daelin asked, his voice tight with anticipation.

"Yes, the young Duke you're looking forward to received a message from me, and he said 'the plan remains unchanged'." Gina replied, a faint smile playing on her lips.

Daelin suddenly calmed down, a wave of relief washing over him. He was absolutely sure that Duke, that cunning little fox, must have a special way to change this situation, to turn the tables.

In this era, unless the ships were practically within spitting distance of each other, there was no such thing as night battles. Naval engagements in the dark were a recipe for disaster. Since Duke looked at the night and told him that the plan remained unchanged, he would just wait for that opportunity, biding his time.

It was late at night, the moon was swallowed by dark clouds, and it was a very boring job to look out over the dark, featureless sea. Many new lookouts, unaccustomed to the monotonous vigil, would fall asleep in such a situation, lulled by the gentle rocking of the waves.

But no one slept tonight. Every sailor, from the lowliest deckhand to the most seasoned captain, was told to prepare for an unprecedented night battle. This determined that the powerful Kul Tiras fleet would either gain nothing from this war and be completely left out, like a wallflower at a ball, or be promoted to become a hunter of the night, a terror in the darkness.

The huge fleet was deployed in a straight line, a formidable wall of steel and wood, parallel to the distant coastline. This was the best option to maximize the fleet's firepower for an opponent that had no ability to resist, no way to fight back.

The helmsman stared intently at the stern lights of friendly ships not far ahead, carefully maintaining distance and formation, a delicate dance in the darkness.

In the distant, inky blackness, the first reflection of light appeared, a tiny, shimmering beacon.

This quickly attracted the attention of the lookout and Admiral Daelin, and then more blurry spots of light appeared in the darkness, growing steadily.

Like a rising firework, a milky white ball of light floated up into the sky, slow and deliberate.

After just a dozen seconds, more and brighter lights appeared on the sea, illuminating a large offshore area near the coast as bright as day, turning night into a false dawn.

"Light? How could it be there?" Daelin, not a mage himself, was baffled, his brow furrowed in confusion.

The high elf mage Gina smiled, a knowing, almost mischievous glint in her eyes, and said, "If a human or high elf mage apprentice had created such an unsatisfactory magic, he would have been severely punished by his mentor, probably made to clean latrines with his tongue. However, for a murloc, this is already pretty good. Top-notch, even."

Murloc!?

It turned out to be a murloc mage? Daelin's jaw practically hit the deck.

As someone who had spent a long time at sea and had dealt with murlocs, naga, and various marine monsters for half his life, Daelin knew that there was also a branch of murlocs among the murlocs who dabbled in magic. However, those ridiculous murlocs were the worst spellcasters, their magic about as effective as a wet noodle. The Ice Arrows they shot could only freeze an area the size of a palm and less than a finger wide. They would scatter at the first strike, and unless they hit the vital points, they would have no killing power at all. They were pathetic.

Daelin never thought that these murloc sages, who could only cast level 1 magic at most, could be used in this way.

Yes! They were weak scum, utterly useless in a direct fight.

But after playing the role of a beacon, a living, glowing target marker, they became god-level teammates! They were the unsung heroes of the night!

Through the telescope, it was seen that the orc transport ship in the area covered by the light was exactly the target ship covered with iron sheets, the heavy transports. Daelin shouted excitedly, his voice booming across the deck: "Open the guns! Fire! Fire—"

The Kul Tiras fleet, which had been ready for a long time, their cannons loaded and aimed, let out a series of earth-shattering roars two minutes later.

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang..."

The so-called salvo was nothing more than all the guns from the bow to the stern firing at extremely short intervals. If they fired at the exact same time, the horrific recoil would tear apart the entire deck and even the entire warship, sending it to the bottom of the sea.

Even if the shells did not arrive at the same time, the noise would have been terrifying, a deafening symphony of destruction.

A heavy rain of iron bullets streaked across the dark sky, each one carrying the unique, chilling scream that symbolized the coming of death, and fell into the Horde's transport fleet, turning the sea into a maelstrom of explosions and splintered wood.