Another dawn, painting the horizon in hues of bruised purple and fiery orange, broke over the vast, shimring sea. The surface rippled with an almost serene azure light, deceptively calm. But if one dared to look closer, to pierce the illusion of tranquility, they would find that in the clear, deceptively inviting shallow sea, there were a large number of strange, scaly figures, propelled by powerful tails, swimming at a truly alarming speed.
Like a migrating school of particularly aggressive, very ugly fish, inexplicably drawn by the confluence of cold and warm ocean currents, countless cart-sized murlocs, their beady eyes fixed on their target, led the charge. They surged forward, a gurgling, slly vanguard, beginning their full-scale, utterly chaotic assault on a crescent-shaped bay nestled in the northern part of the Westfall.
The bay itself was not particularly grand; its crescent-shaped pass was a re 60 ters wide, a bottleneck of impending doom. Once you squeezed through, it opened into a shallow water area, with a maximum depth of less than two ters – barely enough to drown a tall human, but perfect for a murloc invasion. If it weren't for the unaesthetic, perpetually damp, and vaguely fishy-slling beach huts of the fishn scattered everywhere, this might actually be a perfect, if slightly remote, beach resort.
A truly colossal group of fishn surged at the mouth of the bay like a black, gurgling tide, their sheer numbers dyeing the entire outside of the bay a murky, ominous hue. They were a living, squirming carpet of scales and fins.
At the very mouth of the bay, a male Naga, a hulking brute of a creature, swam in with an air of arrogant confidence, his huge, powerful snake tail swaying rhythmically in the waves, supporting his majestic upper body well above the water. He looked like a very angry, very well-ard rmaid.
Brandishing a trident whose prongs glead nacingly, the strong male Naga, his gray scales shimring with an almost contemptuous disdain, bellowed arrogantly across the water: "Since we are all descended from the glorious Queen Azshara, hand over the cub! Hand over the human who dared to kill our chief warrior, Nuruk! Do so, and the Grayscale Clan, in our infinite rcy, will grant you a chance to lay down your weapons and surrender! Otherwise, prepare to be flayed!"
"This," Zjara retorted, raising her scepter high, its tip glowing faintly with arcane energy, her voice ringing with defiance, "is now the sacred territory of 'the Thousand-Handed Death God'! If the Grayscale Clan does not wish to be utterly exterminated, to be ground into fish paste, then you will turn around and go back to your murky little holes!"
The male Naga, his scarred face twisting into a sarcastic, sneering expression, shook his head slowly, as if he had known this would happen. He then, with a dramatic flourish, disappeared into the water, presumably to relay the defiant ssage to his equally arrogant chieftain.
"Is that human... really so reliable, High Priest?" The one-eyed male Naga, Ganard, Zjara's most loyal (and perpetually worried) subordinate, couldn't help but ask, his voice laced with doubt. He glanced nervously at the approaching black tide of murlocs.
"No, Ganard," Zjara replied, turning around and looking at her most loyal subordinate with her piercing blue-brown eyes, a flicker of profound weariness in their depths. She then glanced at their newly built, rather flimsy nest of a camp. "I'm just tired of fleeing, and I don't want to surrender. Not to them." Her voice hardened. "Ganard, the battle is not going to go well. You must take them away. They are our last hope, our last chance for survival. Do not fail ."
The male Naga nad Ganard seed reluctant, his massive fra tensing, but finally, with a heavy, resigned sigh, he nodded. "Understood, High Priest. May the depths protect you."
There was a continuous, ominous sound of water splashing in the sea in the distance, growing louder, like a colossal pot of water boiling over. The black color outside the bay, the sheer mass of the invading murloc army, dyed the mouth of the bay at a speed visible to the naked eye. Then, accompanied by a strange, guttural battlecry peculiar to the rn, a sound that struck primal fear into the hearts of any sane creature, the army of rn arrived at the beach in the blink of an eye, a surging, gurgling wave of fury.
The sheer, overwhelming montum of their charge was like a colossal tidal wave hitting the shore, incredibly terrifying, promising utter annihilation.
Unfortunately for the murlocs, the crashing waves only provide montum. They do not provide brains.
The huge, gurgling wave of fishn was abruptly, painfully broken by an alternative, rather unexpected, and very sharp 'shore'.
"Axe Shower!" a voice roared from the heights above.
More than a thousand simple, yet wickedly effective, short axes ca down from the high ground on the shore with a wonderful, deadly circle, like a sudden, tallic heavy rain pouring down. They descended with terrifying speed, almost instantly extinguishing the fragile, barely-built morale that the attacking fishn had just managed to muster.
These were Skinning Axes!
The ingenious (and slightly barbaric) blueprint Duke had acquired from the late, great Hogg.
This was the simplest, most brutally effective axe imaginable. It was made by rely tying a sharp, jagged stone, which could be found everywhere on the seashore, to a sturdy wooden stick with a thick, rough rope. Crude, yes, but undeniably effective.
For humans, unless they were living in the Stone Age, no one in their right mind would use this crude battle axe. But for the slightly ntally retarded, perpetually confused fishn, it was the best, most terrifying throwing weapon imaginable. It was simple, it was sharp, and it flew.
The sudden, devastating ranged attack easily shattered the already flimsy morale of the attacking fishn, sending them into a panicked frenzy. The entire group of gurgling guys turned around and fled at a speed even faster than when they ca, their fins flapping madly. For a mont, their once-imposing formation devolved into utter, comical chaos, a stampede of terrified scales.
Taking advantage of this golden opportunity, Zjara, her eyes gleaming with grim satisfaction, raised her scepter high, and all the defending murlocs, now emboldened by their unexpected success, jumped into the sea and fought with those murlocs who tried to escape. It was a chaotic, gurgling lee of fish-on-fish violence.
If it was a wise commander with disciplined soldiers, perhaps they could use the terrain to repeatedly consu the enemy's forces, bleeding them dry in a tactical masterpiece. But the murlocs... well, they were just stupid. They fought with the strategic brilliance of a particularly confused jellyfish.
Anyway, they had to escape and chase at the sa ti, so they could achieve so results, however minor. It was less a battle and more a very wet, very loud, very confused brawl.
But after the Grayscale Clan, now thoroughly enraged by the murlocs' unexpected defiance, sent a large number of their formidable male Nagas into the battlefield, the situation rapidly devolved in a direction that was increasingly unfavorable to the Angryscale Clan.
Male Nagas possessed a sturdy, muscular body comparable to that of trolls, but with more scales and less body odor. Standing more than two ters tall, even on land, male Nagas could not be defeated without three or five well-trained Stormwind soldiers, ard with very large, very sharp weapons. In places with water, they were even better, becoming terrifying, amphibious hand-to-hand combat specialists.
They wielded their huge tridents with terrifying skill, chopping the fishn who dared to approach Wrathscale into pieces as easily as cutting lons and vegetables. It was a grueso, yet efficient, display of aquatic butchery.
After several desperate, futile attempts, the murlocs, with their limited tactical acun, only dared to use the skinning axes and the pathetic frost arrows of the murloc sages for long-range attacks, hoping to chip away at the Nagas' resolve.
But the effect was, to put it mildly, not great.
As an aquatic species, male Nagas possessed excellent resistance to ice magic, shrugging off frost arrows like annoying gnats. And their scales were extrely thick, almost impenetrable. Wrapped in explosively strong muscles were fish scales that were comparable to plate armor, turning them into living, breathing, trident-wielding tanks.
The murloc's attacks could hardly hurt them at all. It was like throwing wet noodles at a brick wall.
At this ti, a female Naga, her body covered in sleek, nacing gray scales, appeared in the bay, gliding through the water with an almost supernatural grace. This was the leader of the Grayscale Clan, the one who had sent the challenge.
"Zjara !" her voice echoed across the water, laced with a chilling mixture of contempt and cruel amusent. "I'll give you one last chance. Kneel under my tail, like the pathetic, broken creature you are. A Naga priest with the ability to cast spells shouldn't die so easily. It would be such a waste of potential... and a delightful opportunity for to take your young females."
"I refuse—" Zjara roared, her voice trembling with defiance, despite the overwhelming odds.
"Then you die! And I will find your young females and teach them a lesson in proper subservience, a lesson they will never forget! Hahahaha!" The Grayscale Naga's laughter, a harsh, cackling sound, echoed across the bay, a truly terrifying threat. The Naga, after all, were a matriarchal clan, and the females with the ability to cast spells were the true masters, the arbiters of power. The strength of a Naga clan was often not asured by the number of its population or the number of pathetic slave races it controlled, but by the sheer number of female Nagas with the ability to cast spells.
Since there were not enough females in their own family, the Naga clan, in their brutal efficiency, would simply steal female cubs from other families and then train them to be helpers, or rather, enslaved spellcasters, for their own clan. This was how the Naga clan survived and expanded, a grim cycle of abduction and arcane indoctrination.
"Co, then, you monstrous hag!" Zjara roared, her serpentine body coiling, a picture of furious, desperate defiance. One pair of her arms held her scepter aloft, its tip crackling with a faint, defiant energy. And then, with a sudden, breathtaking movent, her other two pairs of arms suddenly pulled out four sharp scimitars, their blades gleaming with a cold, deadly light, from the scabbards behind her waist.
Those were not crude, Naga-forged weapons. That was an exquisite weapon, a masterpiece of craftsmanship that should never have co from a Naga. The cold blade light was reflected in the sparkling water, sending a ripple of shock and alarm through the warriors of the Grayscale Clan.
That was - an expensive and powerful weapon from the dwarf craftsman master of Ironforge! Each one probably cost more than a small village!
When Duke finally arrived, making his suitably dramatic entrance, the battle was already at its most intense, most desperate stage. Most of the Grayscale Clan had already attacked the beach, a chaotic, bloody lee unfolding. On the beach, Zjara, a lone, defiant figure, was besieged by dozens of male Nagas, their tridents flashing like angry lightning.
Almost every mont, more than 10 tridents slashed towards Zjara, a deadly, synchronized attack, but Zjara, with an almost supernatural agility, took advantage of the tiny, almost imperceptible gaps between the inconsistent movents of the male Nagas to launch the most ferocious, most desperate counterattack.
Every ti when she was about to be hit, Zjara's slightly slender upper body, supported by her powerful, snake-like lower body, swung at high speed like a tumbler, dodging fatal attacks again and again in the nick of ti, a blur of green scales and furious motion. Her scepter continuously released heart-piercing ice arrows, each one a shard of frozen death, knocking down male Nagas one by one, sending them sprawling into the shallow water.
Her four ferocious scimitars, wielded with terrifying precision, emitted continuous blade light, chopping off one sturdy arm after another, severing limbs with sickening efficiency.
Her movents were so blindingly fast that they even left a faint, shimring afterimage, a ghostly green blur of pure combat prowess!
She was so fierce, so utterly defiant, but she still couldn't stop the inevitable. The Grayscale Clan was winning, slowly but surely, because the other party's priests, the true powerhouses, hadn't even made a move yet. The real battle was yet to begin.
At this mont, a clear, distinctly male voice, imbued with a casual, almost bored authority, suddenly echoed from the mouth of the bay, cutting through the din of battle like a sharp blade.
"I heard that you can spawn monsters here?" Duke inquired, his voice carrying an unnerving calm, as if he were rely asking for directions to the nearest tavern.
User Comments
0 comments from readers