The remnants of the Amani trolls finally let out a sigh of relief, but the ever-ambitious Bloodscalp trolls had begun to stir.
For them, the fall of the Amani and the death of Zul'jin were not tragedies but blessings.
The destruction of the Amani tribe meant the removal of an external threat, and with Zul'jin dead, they had nothing left to fear.
Their leader, the wicked High Priestess Hex, had long awaited this day. As a devoted priestess of the Blood God Hakkar, she had always harbored a dream: to hold a grand blood ritual, sacrificing an entire troll tribe in its entirety.
Her original targets were the Witherbark, Vilebranch, and Mossflayer tribes. But now, she had set her sights on the remnants of the Amani trolls as well.
Using the last descendants of the old empire as sacrificial offerings to herald the arrival of a new dynasty—this was a cause deeply meaningful to her.
Especially now that the strongest force in the Hinterlands, those irritating, sky-soaring Wildhammer dwarves, seemed to be abandoning their lands there. Instead of continuing their conflict with the trolls, they had turned their attention to developing the recently conquered Zul'Aman.
To her, this was an opportunity sent by the gods.
Thus, she secretly orchestrated a hunt for the remaining Amani trolls. She swore to capture these remnants of the old empire, sacrifice them in a grand blood ritual, and then launch a full-scale assault on her old rivals—the Witherbark, Vilebranch, and Mossflayer tribes.
She had been waiting for this day for far too long.
But she was not the only one.
Alaric, too, had been anticipating this moment.
In truth, the entire plan was devised based on his knowledge from his previous life about these troll factions.
Originally, in history, the Bloodscalp trolls began their conquests against other tribes after the Second War ended.
With the Horde's defeat and their split from the trolls, Zul'jin lost much of his influence among his kin. He had even lost an arm during the war, and any dream of reviving the troll empire had become a distant fantasy.
Apart from the Amani trolls, the other forest troll tribes no longer wished to rally under his banner. It was in this environment that the Bloodscalp trolls launched their attacks against the rest of the Hinterlands' troll clans.
Of course, their campaign ultimately failed. Their enemies aligned themselves with the Horde, and with the Horde's support, they successfully repelled the Bloodscalp tribe.
In the end, unable to find other trolls to sacrifice to Hakkar, the Bloodscalp trolls were forced to offer up their own members in blood rituals, leading to their gradual decline.
Although Alaric had a clear historical precedent to follow, making his plan highly feasible, he still could not be entirely at ease.
After all, this was a real world—not a mere novel or game. Anything could happen.
To prevent unforeseen events, Alaric personally traveled to the Hinterlands to monitor both the Amani and Bloodscalp trolls.
He needed to ensure that the Bloodscalp trolls would attack the remnants of the Amani—but at the same time, he could not let the Amani be completely wiped out.
Ideally, the Amani trolls would escape the assault, seek out the other troll tribes, and form a coalition to fight against the Bloodscalp.
To this end, he was even prepared to use Polymorph to disguise himself as a troll and sow discord among them.
Fortunately, things developed largely as he had expected, and he did not need to take that step—transforming into a troll was easy, but pretending to be a filthy, savage troll was not something he was willing to tolerate.
At last, the Bloodscalp trolls launched their long-anticipated assault on the Amani remnants.
The only unexpected twist was that the Amani tribe was too weakened, with too few able-bodied warriors left. Their defenses and scouting capabilities had massive gaps.
Thus, hidden near the Amani settlement, Alaric had no choice but to use magic to create a small accident, causing the Bloodscalp ambushers to reveal themselves inadvertently. Finally, the Amani's incompetent sentries detected the enemy.
Everything proceeded naturally from there—Warlord Daakara swiftly led the Amani trolls in retreat. Though they suffered significant losses, they managed to escape the Bloodscalp's pursuit.
And Warlord Daakara proved himself worthy of being the formidable leader who, in the original history, briefly revived the Amani trolls after Zul'jin's death.
After learning of the Bloodscalp's recent attacks on other troll tribes, he decisively made the exact move Alaric had anticipated—he reached out to the Witherbark, Vilebranch, and Mossflayer clans to form an alliance against the Bloodscalp.
With Daakara's capabilities and the Amani trolls' prestige, the coalition was quickly established.
Just like Anduin Lothar before him, Daakara was hailed as the supreme commander of the united forces.
In this aspect, it seemed that trolls and human kings shared a similar way of choosing their leaders—status and competence.
Lothar had his lineage as a descendant of Emperor Thoradin, along with his proven battlefield experience against the orcs, making him the Alliance's natural leader.
That, and the fact that Stormwind was too weak to reclaim its lost kingdom, ensuring he had no ambitions of reviving the Arathor Empire.
Likewise, Daakara belonged to the once-great Amani trolls and had long fought against the high elves. He was a seasoned warlord, while the internal conflicts among the Hinterlands trolls had been little more than petty skirmishes.
Furthermore, the Amani tribe's current weakened state made it impossible for him to use the coalition to dominate the other tribes.
Thus, the various troll clans gathered, united under a single banner, and prepared to eradicate the Bloodscalp threat once and for all.
Upon hearing this, High Priestess Hex of the Bloodscalp tribe was furious. She immediately mobilized her forces to punish these insolent tribes.
With both sides now locked in a deadly standoff, war erupted.
Unlike past small-scale raids, this was a full-scale battle. The level of destruction far exceeded the usual skirmishes.
The entire Hinterlands had become a blood-soaked battleground for the forest trolls.
Both sides were experts in jungle warfare.
Daakara, as the leader of the coalition, had extensive combat experience. But the Bloodscalp trolls had the advantage of unity and coordination, making their overall strength nearly equal.
They ambushed and counter-ambushed each other, engaging in squad-based combat deep within the Hinterlands' dense forests of oak and maple trees.
Both sides unleashed the full extent of their guerrilla tactics, turning the jungle into a merciless meat grinder. Every day, hundreds of trolls fell in battle.
Alaric's plan had now reached its successful conclusion.
To everyone else, the scale of the conflict was beyond anything they had imagined.
Though Alaric's subordinates and the rulers of the Alliance nations had long been aware of the plan's objectives, witnessing it unfold left them in utter awe of him.
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