"No, Captain Griffin, our people really can't hold it anymore!"
A dwarf soldier ran back to their defensive position in the large dormitory area in great embarrassment. His face was gray and his armor was incomplete. It looked like he had just experienced a fierce battle.
With some frustration, the dwarf soldier cleaned the trogg's body parts off the musket and sat down on the floor.
"We can't retreat anymore. If the troggs break through this door, there will be unarmed civilians inside!" Captain Griffin looked sad. He had led his men to guard below for several days, but the reinforcements But he didn't come.
Now he probably knows that people like him may not be able to wait for reinforcements.
Maybe there are more soldiers who know this, but they cannot retreat and have no way to retreat, because they are fighting in their own cities now, and behind them are their relatives or friends.
There was not even a dwarf commander who asked them not to retreat, but these tenacious "little dwarfs" burst out with amazing willpower at this moment, and withstood one wave of attacks despite the extremely disparity in numbers.
It's not that they don't want to escape, but when they think of escaping, their friends and relatives may die tragically at the hands of the Troggs first. How many of them have the "courage" to escape?
However, sometimes, it is not possible to defeat the opponent just by relying on will and belief.
Faced with the almost endless number of troggs and their tireless and casualties charge, the dwarfs fired countless ammunition and shells, and even batches of security robots rushed into the monsters and exploded themselves. It just delayed the fall of Gnomeregan.
Griffin held on to his musket tightly. Of course he knew in his heart that if he didn't get support, the dormitory area would fall if he persisted for two days at most.
By then...if no one comes...I'm afraid I can only blow up the door!
That was a last resort, because once the passage between the dormitory area and the outside world was destroyed, if they wanted to leave the underground of Gnomeregan, they could only wait for the illusory rescue team.
As for breaking out, Griffin didn't dare to think about it, because they tried their best and could only rely on strong fortifications to block the Troggs' offensive. Once they left the fortifications, they would probably be overwhelmed by the Troggs in an instant. submerged.
With just a team of dozens of them, if they forcefully break through, they will be like small stones thrown into the ocean, and may not even be able to stir up a bigger wave.
"Zizzizi...zizizi..."
Just when Griffin was extremely worried about this, the harsh but savior-like electric sound of the walkie-talkie rang.
Griffin stared at the machine in shock, his eyes full of disbelief, while the dwarf soldier slumped on the ground beside him also instantly became energetic.
"Captain, what are you waiting for? Pick it up quickly!"
The soldier eagerly urged Griffin to get through the walkie-talkie, because it might contain their hope of getting out of trouble.
But Griffin hesitated for a moment before touching the walkie-talkie, because he didn't know whether it would be good news or bad news after it was connected.
If it was really bad news...how should he tell it to his subordinates?
However, it seems that nothing could be worse than now.
Thinking of this, Griffin decisively grabbed the walkie-talkie and connected the call.
"Zizzizi...Hey, can you hear it? Is there any sound? ...Zizzizi..."
"This is Griffin Copperbolt, the captain of the 138th Special Operations Squadron of Gnomeregan!"
"Captain Copperbolt?... Zizizi... Damn it, this communication line seems to have been damaged by those stone jaw monsters... Hey, hey, hey... Please tell us the location of your team, the rescue team will go find you!... …Zizzizi…can you hear it?!”
"Yes, you can hear it! We are in the dormitory area on the ground floor. Besides us, there are more than a dozen other teams and thousands of civilians trapped here!"
The operator over there seemed to be surprised by this number, but he immediately calmed down and seemed to be negotiating with the people around him. After getting a definite answer, he immediately said, "Don't worry, please hold on for a while longer. At most In one day, our troops will be able to open the door to the dormitories—"
At this moment, the walkie-talkie suddenly flashed with a large amount of dazzling sparks. Griffin was shocked, but before he could remedy the situation, the walkie-talkie was completely scrapped.
The operator above was also startled by the explosion. He hung up the call with some annoyance, "Damn, it's another damaged line. I don't know if the team leader got the order."
"There is no way. Troggs are destroying almost every place in Gnomeregan. They have almost destroyed the communication lines of most of the city." Another technician is working hard to repair the communication walkie-talkies that are still working.
The troggs didn't just invade at the bottom. They broke out from almost all the inner walls of Gnomeregan that were not covered by metal, and beat up a large number of precision instruments and equipment.
This caused them to waste more than twice the time in confirming whether the communication line was open, and the dwarf technicians were also working overtime to try to repair the damaged lines.
However, there are still a large number of lines that are completely disconnected, so they can only try to connect those damaged terminals with unstable radios.
However, for some reason, probably because of radio problems, those machines often couldn't bear the load and exploded.
(Note: Azeroth’s technology is not the same as the real world. It is probably just something with the same name and function. As for the principle, do not substitute it into reality! This is not a science fiction article! It is not a popular science article!)
Captain Griffin was also a little confused about the interruption of the call, but he reacted immediately and ordered excitedly, "Quick, send someone to other dormitories to notify us that we have reinforcements!"
The dwarf soldier suddenly jumped up from the ground, picked up his musket that was seriously out of shape, and ran out with strength that he didn't know where he came from.
"Wait a minute, Kirk, what are you going to do with that nearly bent musket? Are you going to smash the trogg's head in? Take this!"
Griffin threw a brand new musket, and Kirk quickly caught it. After saluting Griffin with a rather comical military salute, he trotted away.
Griffin was relieved when he saw the soldiers leaving. He looked at the pile of high explosives being assembled by the wall, thought about it, and gave up the idea of installing it on the door.
After all, it was an explosive with a huge yield. Now that we had reinforcements, we didn't have to use it to blow down the door and seal ourselves off when we were desperate.
He pulled out another new gun, checked the condition of the gun, took enough ammunition and explosives, and quickly rushed to the front line.
He had spent too much time here assembling explosives and waiting for an order. Now it was time for him to fight side by side with his team members.
But when Griffin rushed to the front line, he was stunned again, because he found that there were only sporadic troggs attacking the dwarfs' defensive positions, and with these cats and dogs, they had not even touched them. The dwarfs' defense line was beaten into a sieve.
"What's going on?!" Griffin grabbed a soldier who was shooting in retaliation against the trogg.
"Ah! Captain Griffin, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to waste bullets!"
"Idiot! I'm not asking you this, I'm asking you where is the Stonejaw?" Griffin kicked the guy, which was considered punishment for wasting bullets.
Although the gnomes are not short of ammunition and weapons, they save what they can because they don't know how many troggs are hidden underground. If they really run out of bullets, they will have to engage in bloody hand-to-hand combat with these monsters.
That was a sight that all dwarf commanders did not want to see. Hand-to-hand combat meant that they could no longer rely on fortifications and bunkers to consume the troggs, but had to conduct a real "digital exchange."
Although there are also excellent warriors and assassins among dwarves, their physical strength is inherently much weaker than that of their neighbor dwarves, so they rely more on their smart brains.
"I'm not sure. After the massive attack by the Troggs just now, their numbers suddenly became scarce, and their pace became very strange."
Pace getting weird?
Griffin looked at the square and streets that served as the battlefield. The troggs were running around in twos and threes, and sometimes bumped into each other in a panic.
These troggs have completely lost their former ferocity. Instead, they seem to be afraid of and avoiding something...
Griffin looked at the back of the square that was blocked by flames and black smoke, and ordered, "No matter what the troglodytes are doing, hold your position. Once a troglodytes approach, immediately use what you have on me to kill me." Greet them hard!"
"Yes! Captain!"
…
Grommash stepped on the corpse of a tall trogg with some boredom. He heard the dwarfs seem to be shouting loudly on the other side of the flames and smoke.
Kicking away the non-threatening beast under his feet, Grommash held the battle ax and walked forward in the tunnel "strewn with corpses".
Here, swarms of cavemen fell. This was Grommash's masterpiece just now. Although the proposal to use normal plague was rejected, the magic plague is still a little monster that can't be killed like these ants. A good way.
Compared to real plagues created through alchemy, magical transformation, and biological experiments, magical plagues break out more quickly. These "plagues" formed by dark magic can spread quickly among individuals just like real plagues.
It's just that the duration of magical plagues is not long-lasting. They will quickly swallow up the vitality of the living and turn it into the source of power for their own spread. This will cause the infected to die at an extremely fast speed.
You may even only need to be a few meters away from the last victim so that the rapidly dissipating death energy will not erode your life.
However, this is not realistic for the cavemen who are almost crowded in the tunnel.
Under the death knight's magical plague, their exuberant vitality became the nourishment for the rapid outbreak and infection of the plague. These magics directly took away their vitality and souls, and after they fell, the burst of dark energy would still be there. Causes secondary damage to surrounding troggs.
So Grommash just moved his fingers and didn't spend much effort. The weak troggs died one after another. They left hundreds of corpses in an instant.
What surprised Grommash was that although some strong troggs were not completely immune to the plague, they did not die immediately and could roar and attack Grommash.
Unfortunately, although these guys are stronger and more vicious than their compatriots, to Grommash, they are just beasts.
When he was in Draenor, he tried to hunt the Gronn orcs. Even the weakest orcs could easily kill a dozen of these mindless beasts. Grommash was not even interested in destroying them.
"How does it feel to harvest life?" Orgrim walked over from the other end of the tunnel. He looked at the piles of corpses at Grommash's feet and asked.
"Their blood only insults my axe," Grommash wiped away the blood on Gorehowl with his arm. Grommash's expression became a little sad as he looked at the weapon that had been with him all his life.
Orgrim noticed the changes in Grommash, and he laughed softly, "What's wrong? After being 'resurrected' again, you can't even use weapons?"
"This ax should not be held by a dead orc. It is no different from the stupidity of bringing the weapon into the tomb." Grommash sighed, "Orgrim, tell me, can I take it?" Send away."
"Of course, we are the dark army of the Lich King, but he has not deprived us of our free will, has he?" Orgrim raised his rune war hammer, "My weapon is not given to the Sarna boy. Now, after the things here are dealt with, you can do what you want to do first, my brother."
Grommash stared into Orgrim's eyes for a while, then said slowly, "Thank you, my brother."
Orgrim smiled. He patted Grommash on the shoulder and walked towards the entrance of another tunnel. "Let's go. There is still work to do. Anub'rakhan has already brought his spider." The demon has gone to hunt the spellcasters among the troggs, and we have to collect some souls for the archlich."
"Isn't this enough?" Grommash frowned as he looked at the corpses of the Troggs lying on the ground.
"I've seen it. The souls of these guys are more or less defective. I don't know if it's because their intelligence is not much different from that of beasts. We need more numbers to make up for the defects."
The transparent soul of a stone jaw emerged from Orgrim's rune war hammer. He grabbed it with one hand and threw it to Grommash.
After catching this soul, the extra knowledge of the undead that seemed to be innate in Grommash's mind made him instantly understand that the soul of the trogg seemed to be a little... different?
Their souls seem incomplete, much more incomplete than those of beasts with sufficient intelligence, but it seems that when the souls of multiple troggs come together, they instead embody a strange "completeness" feel".
"These dirty monsters are really strange. They give me a very unnatural feeling."
Orgrim muttered to himself, and then disappeared into the dark tunnel.
