The orcs who thundered into the front lines paid dearly—bodies torn, lives extinguished—but not before they turned nearly a third of the human spear wall into a twisted graveyard of shattered ash-wood and bloodied steel. Their corpses didn't just fall; they landed, like green-skinned battering rams, denting the very earth.
And then came the second wave, with just enough surviving berserkers foaming at the mouth to engage the sword-and-shield infantry of the front line. There were no battle cries—only a brutal bang, the sound of a hammer crashing into a shield like the wrath of a drunk mountain god.
Even warriors who had trained under the infamous Naga instructors—men who wrestled sea monsters and passed—found their knuckles splitting, arms trembling from the sheer force. One soldier's hand exploded into bone fragments as he raised his sword. He still stabbed the orc through the neck on reflex. Training pays off.
For every fallen beast, another charged in. The third wave was less of a wave and more of a goddamn tsunami of muscle, rage, and aerodynamic hammers the size of bar stools. A few orcs went full kamikaze, hurling themselves like living battering rams into the human formation. The result? Shield formations buckled, soldiers grunted and screamed, and entire lines quaked like they were doing the earthquake dance.
In front of the once-pristine formation were now irregular depressions—bloody potholes in the path to hell.
Here, raw strength trumped strategy. Even the Griffin Legion—Stormwind's elite—felt the limits of heroism. Three humans to kill one orc. Not bad... until you realize the orcs had brought what felt like all of them.
Griffin Legion armor gleamed like silver rain—right up until it was sprayed with orc entrails and brain matter. The green-skinned bastards wore leather armor that was more decorative than functional. You stabbed one? Great. But he'd still try to bite your nose off while bleeding out like a slaughtered hog.
Anduin Lothar, sword in hand, moved through the chaos like a whirlwind dressed in steel. He wasn't just leading—he was the front line. The man swung his greatsword one-handed like it was a twig. Orcs came at him in droves. He made corpses out of them with surgical precision. His kill count? Already in the dozens. He was death in a tabard.
He should've been directing from the center, barking commands like a civilized commander. But civilized warfare died about fifteen minutes ago. What the men needed wasn't a tactician—they needed a hero. And they got one.
On a neighboring slope, General Tom Seamos was reenacting a similar bloodbath. Except Seamos lacked Lothar's finesse and flair. He was raw grit—fighting with a dislocated arm and a spear wound that made every step feel like dancing on knives.
The third wave turned into the fourth. The fourth into the fifth. Orcs kept coming. Lothar was sure he'd already carved through a thousand, yet it didn't even make a dent. The green tide stretched into the distance like some sick joke.
Around him, the once-dense phalanx had thinned. He could see too much—too much daylight between shields, too many bodies behind him twitching in blood-slick dirt. Soldiers gasping, bleeding, screaming prayers that nobody answered.
Then came the worst part: magic. Strange, robed orcs appeared—thinner than their kin, staves glowing with malicious energy. A few short chants, and then hell broke loose. One Griffin soldier's eyes rolled back, and he started laughing. He rushed an orc formation solo and got turned into green paste. Another turned on his comrades, swinging wildly, eyes blank.
Lothar's jaw clenched. He knew. Two minutes. Maybe three. Then the whole line would crumble.
"Commander! Message from Duke Fordragon! He orders you to retreat!" a frantic voice cried.
Lothar didn't even turn. "Retreat? With what army?"
There were no reinforcements. No Plan B. Behind them was a trickle of wounded, barely hobbling. Ahead? A meat grinder.
On the nearby ridge, Seamos' unit was visibly collapsing—only two solid lines left, and those lines were swaying like drunks. Seamos himself was a mess: one arm limp, his once-golden hair now a clotted helmet of blood and viscera.
But just then, fate blinked.
Unbeknownst to the commanders, a ragtag group of men—dressed like discarded noble house guards—had reached the summit of a ridge. They dismounted quickly, pulling long, arcane-wrapped cases off their horses.
One among them, clad in unmarked Stormwind armor, itched to charge down and join the slaughter.
"Hold it, Reggie," another man said calmly.
Reginald Windsor, future legend, clenched his fists. "We're just going to watch this?"
The man smiled. "First, you're my squire now. Second, I am the plan. Third, I'm not a bloody hydra I can't fight two fronts at once. You and Makaro are backing up General Seamos . People like him shouldn't die in footnotes."
"Understood!" Windsor snapped a salute. Others in mismatched gear followed, streaming into a mountaintop bunker like ghosts entering a crypt.
The man, Duke, sighed as he watched the valley burn.
"Heaven to the left, heroes to the right," he muttered. "Why does that sound noble in poetry and suicidal in real life?"
Back down the slope, Seamos felt his body fail him. His left arm dangled like meat. Blood poured from his thigh. He was coated in gore that wasn't even his. He barely had the strength to blink.
He wanted to die. He was ready.
Not battle cries. Not horns. Not thunder.
It was a whistling—strange and sharp. Like magic itself inhaling.
Before Seamos could turn, there was a chorus of puff-puff-puff! Sounds. And the green wall in front of him exploded.
Something had ripped it open like a child tearing paper.
"WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE LIGHT—?!" he barked.
Floating above the ridge, glowing like angry stars, were hands. Not flesh-and-blood hands—no, these were arcane, spectral, monstrous things. Hundreds of them.
Each hand opened. And pointed.
And all hell broke loose.