In his more than ten years of debut, Sarlayan has dealt with trolls from various clans.
Until now, he did not dare to say that he fully understood the endless voodoo methods of trolls. Trolls from different clans could come up with new tricks for him from time to time.
Sarlayan even suspected that the troll civilization remained primitive and backward for more than ten thousand years. The main reason was that they put all their energy into studying voodoo and never thought about technology.
Of course, this is just a joke.
Logically speaking, voodoo is also part of the magic system, and magic and technology are just tools to pursue the truth. In the end, they reach the same goal through different paths.
What made Sarlayan unbearable was not the trolls' fanatical interest in voodoo, but that they did not use voodoo in the right way and thought about how to torture people all day long.
Use barrage jokes as an analogy.
Obviously, research on gunpowder technology can further improve the power of explosive weapons and effectively enhance the country's force and deterrence. However, some people with bright minds just don't take the right path and insist on using it to blow up shit in manholes.
Trolls... to be precise, trolls other than Zandalari pretty much fit this trope.
No, the Atalai cultists have developed a new trick through voodoo methods.
Now that he has touched upon the research of voodoo at the soul level, Sarlayan can't figure out why Atalai didn't learn Zandalar.
With the help of Death Loabang Sandy, he gained a deeper understanding of the concept of death. Instead, he used his brains to transform these one-time self-destruction bombs for wraiths.
One thing to say, it is indeed a waste of natural resources.
Sarlayan couldn't understand the brain circuits of the cultists.
These self-exploding wraiths that are only immune to all damage for a short period of time are not very harmful, but are more likely to cause initial kills.
As long as they roam around like dogs and don't take the initiative to approach and touch them, the resentful spirits will not be able to cause any harm and will automatically disappear when their activity time reaches the limit.
The deaths of the six high-ranking Atalai priests will inevitably alarm the Atalai leadership squatting in the core area at the bottom.
After all, the Atal'Hakkar Temple is the enemy's home ground, and there are also dream demon forces hiding in the dark, ready to cause trouble at any time.
Sarlayan did not want to face the cultists' crazy counterattack.
Whether it can be fought is one thing, whether it is necessary is another.
Under Sarlayan's order, the Backlight Blade thieves who completed their respective tasks sneaked back on the spot.
Next, they will continue to go deep into the bottom of the temple under the personal leadership of Valeera. Their main task is to find out the specific location of Atalai's leader and carry out the assassination.
Just in case, Sharlayan sent Jaina there.
Jaina can't sneak, but she can use the mage's unique invisibility spell to enter phase space. It's not that easy for trolls to catch her.
The Temple of Atal'Hakkar is a typical troll pyramid structure, with the floors getting larger as you go down.
With more than a hundred thieves spread out on the ground floor of Nuoda's temple, it would not be crowded at all. Sarlayan, who planned to act alone, speculated that it would take at least several hours for the Backlight Blade to complete the assassination target.
The development of the situation was just as Sarlayan expected.
Fortunately, the thieves acted quickly enough and finally reached the bottom of the temple before the Atalai cultists blocked the descending stairs.
The stairwell is only so big, and if you move a little slower, the opponent will get into a good formation, creating a situation where one man is in control and no one can get through.
...Of course, the actual situation is certainly not that bad. Atalai may not necessarily have such a powerful general.
The thieves of the Backlight Blade need to actively avoid the Atalai trolls that are roaring towards the middle level like rats exploding a nest. This will inevitably cause their exploration progress to be slowed down.
With Valeera and Jaina personally on duty, Sarlayan was not worried about the thieves' safety.
Even if they are unlucky enough to encounter the Dream Demon Army, these two heroines who are proficient in space teleportation can immediately move to the scene to resolve the crisis.
After the thieves split into two groups and started taking action, Sarlayan stood in the central ring of the hall and observed the surrounding situation.
The structure of the ground floor of the temple is not complicated, with only 6 intersections in total.
To the north is the stairwell leading to the middle area. A large number of Atalai trolls are swarming towards the middle area... although this is of no use.
There is only one road to the south directly opposite the stairwell. Using the eagle eye technique, you can only see a corner. Sarlayan can vaguely feel a familiar and ominous atmosphere from the depths of this road.
There are two intersections on the west and east sides. If the information provided by the barrage is true, the two roads on each side are connected to each other, and the final destination is two halls with different purposes.
The experience given by the barrage based on the game copy cannot be fully believed. In the real Azeroth, Atalai's leader cannot always squat in one place and wait for the enemy to challenge him.
According to the barrage, the leader of Atalai they knew was named Prophet Jamalan.
However, the information they know comes from a few years later in the original history, and no one can guarantee whether there will be changes in Atalai's personnel in the past few years.
If you just apply the information provided by the barrage without thinking, you may suffer big losses due to inertial thinking.
Therefore, Sarlayan has never spoken out the name of the prophet Jamalan, so as not to let the thieves of the Backlight Blade form preconceived and wrong perceptions.
Personnel could be replaced, but the purpose of the temple's halls was unlikely to drastically change over the course of a few years, especially as it involved the altar of Hakkar.
If nothing else, the hall to the west of the temple should be the altar used to worship Haka, replacing the abandoned altar located on the water.
To the east is the administrative area where Atalai's core layer is located, and most of Atalai's leaders should be concentrated in this area.
Considering that Hakkar had been beaten to suicide by Sharlayan not long ago, the task of exploring Hakkar's altar was assigned to the second detachment of the Backlight Blades, led by Jaina.
Valeera personally led the first detachment to deeply explore the Atalai administrative hall to the east.
"As expected of a fanatical cultist who believes in Hakkar."
When the black panther transformed from Sarlayan went south as a stalker, he discovered many giant wind serpents who were the descendants of Haka, with various attributes.
Sarlayan did not alert the snake. He took the initiative to bypass these large spicy sticks and continued to the south intersection.
The closer he got to the passage, the more obvious the oppressive atmosphere Sarlayan felt.
"it is as expected."
After turning the last corner, Sarlayan saw a huge beast with a black and green halo all over its body.
To be precise, it is a giant beast with a soul body that has been corrupted by the Dream Demon.
It was a huge turtle, which looked quite similar to Tortola in appearance and similar in size.
But Sarlayan is certain that this guy is definitely not Tortora.
Not long before setting off for Draenor, Sharlayan also visited the Emerald Dream and contacted several demigods remotely.
Except for the arrogant Goldrinn and the withdrawn Ashaman who did not respond to contact, all the demigods were alive and kicking in the Emerald Dream, including the turtle demigod Tortora.
[This guy...could he be Nemesis? 】
[It doesn’t look like that. Isn’t Nemesis a very cool-looking flame turtle? 】
[That is its form after being infused with flames by Ragnaros. The original appearance of Nemesis and Tortola are almost identical. 】
[The positioning of Nemesis is very similar to that of Lecanthos to Goldrinn. It is the shadow of Tortola, his other side. 】
[In the original history, the Twilight Hammer wanted to replace the turtle demigods and wolf gods of Tortola and Goldrinn with Nemesis and Lakanthos, but they failed in the end. 】
"The shadow of Tortola..."
Sarlayan looked thoughtfully at the armored beast that had obviously completely lost its mind.
"This is Atalai's biggest reliance, right? This guy looks pretty good."
As the shadow of a demigod, representing the dark side of their wild nature, Nemesis originally had no entity in the material world. This is the main reason why it and Lycanthos were easily corrupted by the Dream Demon.
"Isn't it true that all wild demigods have a shadow of the dark side?"
The corners of Sarlayan's mouth twitched: "What are you playing with? Split personality?"
[That’s not to say, as far as we know, the only demigods with shadow sides are Goldrinn and Tortola, and the others have not been heard of at least so far. 】
"Fine."
Sarlayan kept sneaking around Nemesis in a circle. The big turtle didn't notice anyone approaching at all, and it still closed its eyes tightly and remained motionless.
Sarlayan, who maintained his black panther appearance, simply squatted down at the entrance to the hall in front of Nemesis.
"Let's wait for news from Valeera and Jaina first. As long as this big turtle doesn't move, I won't bother to put in more effort."
"but……"
Sarlayan looked thoughtfully at the dream demon aura rising from Nemesis: "I wonder if I can use the power of these dream demons to trace back to the place where Varosen was recovering from his injuries... Let's give it a try."
