Vereesa quickly dressed herself, her fingers moving swiftly through the straps of her leather armor. By the time she reached the window, dawn was already beginning to break.
When Vereesa arrived at the military camp, a group of wounded soldiers had just been carried back.
Their armor was stained with black-red blood. Some groaned atop stretchers, some lay silently with their eyes closed, and some no longer needed treatment at all.
The five leaders stood at the entrance of the camp, their expressions grave.
A wounded soldier, supported by two comrades, staggered toward them. They were part of the garrison stationed at the Dark Portal.
Half his face was covered in blood, and his left arm hung in a sling already soaked through crimson.
"This is bad…" His voice was hoarse, as though every word drained the last of his strength. "The Dark Portal… it's been opened once again."
Everyone was stunned.
Even without obtaining the three artifacts, the orcs had still managed to reopen the Dark Portal.
Someone sucked in a cold breath. Someone instinctively stepped back. Someone tightened their grip on their weapon.
Those who had lost homes, comrades, and everything else during the Second War felt fear and pain rise once more in their eyes.
Were they truly going to wage war against those terrifying orcs again?
Turalyon reacted immediately.
He abruptly drew the longsword at his waist, the blade carving a sharp arc through the morning light.
His voice thundered across the camp like a peal of lightning: "All soldiers—!"
He raised his sword high. At that moment, something blazing burned across that weathered face, tempered by wind and sand.
"Isn't this exactly why we came here?!"
His gaze swept across the wounded soldiers, the young faces pale with fear, and the comrades standing frozen in shock.
"We came here to stop those bastards! Our army has already assembled, and the Sons of Lothar stand ready for battle—opening the Dark Portal now only works in our favor!"
He paused, his voice rising even higher.
"They've run straight into our guns!"
The soldiers atop the walls slowly lifted their heads.
"Soldiers!" Turalyon turned around, his sword pointing toward the western horizon stained black with smoke.
"Warriors!" His voice echoed between the walls, rebounding from every shield.
"The entire army will assemble—advance!"
He was the first to charge forward, his armor turning into a streak of light beneath the dawn.
"Drive them back! Push them back through the Dark Portal—!"
The sound of war horns tore apart the dawn.
The gates of Nethergarde Keep burst open with a thunderous roar as iron hooves shattered the cracked earth of the Blasted Lands.
Human soldiers formed dense phalanxes, their spears like a forest and their shield walls like mountains. Every step they took sent sand and gravel flying.
The paladins charged out on horseback, silver battle cloaks snapping violently in the wind. Turalyon rode at the forefront, Holy Light blazing across his sword like a white sun.
At the same time, the mages of the Kirin Tor raised their staffs together. Arcane radiance gathered at their tips into a vast azure river of stars, illuminating the entire wasteland as bright as day.
The Wildhammer dwarves' gryphon riders dove down from the skies. The gryphons' golden wings tore through the gray haze overhead, casting rapidly sweeping shadows below as the dwarves gripped their battle axes, their war cries intertwining with the shrieks of the gryphons.
The high elf rangers silently dispersed, like streams of silver water seeping into the cracks of the scorched earth.
Higher above the battlefield, the dragonhawk riders circled across the heavens, the edges of those massive golden wings rimmed with the light of dawn.
Vereesa rode atop one of the dragonhawks, her silver hair whipping wildly in the high-altitude winds. Her gaze pierced through the clouds and settled upon the massive green rift tearing across the distant land.
The Dark Portal burned at the far end of the Blasted Lands.
That enormous green rift resembled a wound split open across the earth itself. Fel flames poured from the edges of the gateway, staining the entire sky a sickly emerald green.
The orcs surged out of the portal like a tidal wave. Those green-skinned warriors brandished bloodstained battle axes as they poured endlessly from the rift like an unstoppable flood.
Hooked chains dragged enormous war drums behind them. The thunderous beating of the drums shook the very ground beneath the battlefield.
The two tides collided upon the wastelands of the Blasted Lands.
The instant the first human phalanx crashed into the orc vanguard, the sound of metal tearing through flesh, bones shattering, and dying warriors roaring their final cries fused into a deafening wave that seemed to surge into the heavens.
Spears pierced through orc chests. Battle axes split apart human shields. Holy Light and fel energy collided violently in the air, erupting into bursts of blinding radiance.
Arcane missiles rained down from the mages' staffs like a meteor shower, only for the orc warlocks to answer with volleys of Shadow Bolts.
The ground was instantly soaked in blood, so much that it became impossible to tell whether it belonged to humans or orcs.
The Wildhammer dwarves' gryphon riders dove from the clouds, their battle axes carving bloody paths straight through the orc ranks.
Without the Dragonmaw Clan, and without yet forming an alliance with the wyverns of Kalimdor, the orcs possessed almost no air superiority.
Vereesa drew her longbow. The arrow tore through the air before erupting amidst the orcs in a surging sea of flames.
Beneath her, the dragonhawk twisted, circled, and dove through the battlefield with agile precision.
Suddenly, Vereesa sharply sensed an enormous concentration of shadow power erupting from an orc formation not far away.
The sensation was extremely familiar to her.
There was even violent fel energy mixed within it.
She immediately urged her dragonhawk toward it at full speed.
Her body had never felt so light before.
She was no longer the same person she once was.
She was no longer a child. No longer the "Little Moon" protected behind her sister's back.
Now, she could fight shoulder to shoulder with her sister.
Now, she could fight to protect this world.
She raised her longbow high, just about to draw the string—
When suddenly, the sky above her darkened.
The shadow descended far too quickly. So quickly that she only had time to look up and see a mass of darkness blotting out the heavens.
She violently yanked on the dragonhawk's reins, forcing it sharply to the side, but a green infernal meteor still grazed the creature's wing. Fel flames scorched half the feathers black.
The dragonhawk spun downward like a kite with its strings cut.
That meteor crashed directly into the ranks of the Sons of Lothar.
Towering green flames instantly engulfed the nearby soldiers.
More than a dozen men were reduced to ashes before they could even scream.
The explosion blasted fire outward across the ground as shattered stone and chunks of flesh were hurled into the sky.
Then, from that scorched black crater, a gigantic figure slowly rose to its feet.
Its entire body was formed from molten green fel lava. Flames flowed through every crack in its massive form like blood surging through veins.
An Infernal.
It raised one colossal arm and slammed it down onto the battlefield. The earth trembled violently as several more soldiers were crushed into bloody pulp.
More meteors tore across the heavens.
One. Two. Ten—
Trailing green tails of flame, they descended from the sky, crashing into the battle lines of the Sons of Lothar, into the midst of the mages, and directly into the center of the paladin formations preparing to charge.
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