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The formation naturally concealed highly lethal magic, poisonous traps, and even sinister soul-piercing curses. However, Chen Xuanfeng would rather personally engage in slaughter than activate these forces. Doing so would not only yield no benefit but also damage his reputation—a loss outweighing the gain.

"Your Majesty, we..." The Wolf Clan general standing behind Chen Xuanfeng grew somewhat restless. Though they were unafraid of the enemy truly breaking their formation with Chen Xuanfeng, a Sword Saint, at their side, facing the siege of tens of thousands of the strongest orc warriors would make even a dragon or Beamon's heart quail. He couldn't help but urge Chen Xuanfeng to activate some of their more lethal hidden weapons.

Chen Xuanfeng refused, however. "No need. The Eightfold Battle Array has already secured us enough advantage. Though the enemy is too numerous for us to completely devour them, it’s wishful thinking for them to believe they can break this formation through sheer numbers. Even if the array’s transformations are suppressed, our warriors remain unbroken and can still coordinate, while the enemy has long lost all cohesion and can hardly counterattack. The Splitfang Clan, with over a hundred thousand elite warriors from the Lion, Tiger, and Leopard Clans, has besieged eighty thousand weaker clans in open battle yet still failed to gain the upper hand. The lost glory is enough to make them unable to hold their heads high among the Lion Clan and the entire orc race. So it’s them who are truly desperate, them who need to seek change. I suspect they’ll soon play their trump card—the Warcraft Orcs."

...You think the 'rules' restrict me, yet fail to realize they restrict you just the same...

The situation unfolded exactly as Chen Xuanfeng predicted. Though the overwhelming numbers of Splitfang Clan warriors swarming the siege did limit the Eightfold Battle Array’s transformations, slowing its operation, the Fontainebleau forces continuously adapted—sometimes retreating to tighten defenses, sometimes sending light cavalry to disrupt enemy formations. By the time over two-thirds of the Splitfang Clan’s army had crammed into the array, locking the eerie formation in place, their commanders realized they could no longer locate their own units. Meanwhile, the Fontainebleau army maintained its organization, leveraging fortifications and favorable terrain to form countless smaller battle arrays, still fighting on equal terms.

In a true life-or-death struggle, Fontainebleau might have held some lethal trump cards, but the Lion Clan’s army wouldn’t have fought so helplessly either.

The Lion Clan’s apparent disarray stemmed largely from their long-standing coordination with the War Shrine’s Shamans. When combined, their combat power wasn’t merely additive. Not to mention the frenzy effect of the Doomsday Horn, secretly stored in the War Shrine, which could instantly amplify tens of thousands of warriors’ lethality tenfold—even ordinary Shaman blessings could turn a Lion Clan warrior into an unstoppable juggernaut. Under such conditions, tight formation coordination would only restrain their battle-crazed momentum, which was why Lion Clan forces emphasized freedom and individual heroism.

But in this civil war, the War Shrine remained silent, and the Shamans under the Pontiff’s command naturally stayed uninvolved. Though the Splitfang Clan had recruited many Shamans to their cause over the years, the former Orc King Samanda’s influence among Shamans paled in comparison to his sway over warriors. Their Shamans were not only insufficient in number but also only average in ability, utterly incapable of supporting the entire army. With their usual reinforcements absent, yet their combat style deeply ingrained, their prearranged formations shattered by Chen Xuanfeng, and now facing an unprecedented battle array, these factors combined to make the Lion Clan so easily ensnared by the Eightfold Battle Array.

Even without Shamans, the Splitfang Clan still possessed plenty of deadly force—be it magic siege cannons and ballistae or mass-destruction curses, all were formidable weapons of war. Yet just as Chen Xuanfeng wouldn’t slaughter the Splitfang Clan’s elites en masse, these methods couldn’t be used against Fontainebleau’s army either. Victory or defeat aside, the Splitfang Clan would become pariahs within the entire orc alliance. Moreover, even the elite warriors among them actively sought opponents of similar strength rather than indiscriminately slaughtering common soldiers. This was the meaning behind Chen Xuanfeng’s words: "The rules restrict both sides."

At this point, the battlefield had reached a stalemate. Unless both sides were willing to bleed heavily for mutual destruction, they ought to withdraw and fight another day. But for today’s battle, this was merely the end of the first half—the climax of the latter half was just beginning.

Sure enough, as the battle deadlocked completely, Chen Xuanfeng within the Eightfold Battle Array suddenly looked up. From the Lion Clan’s main camp on the distant hillside, dozens of dazzling combat energy beams shot skyward before roaring down toward the array below.

Chen Xuanfeng's lips curled in a cold smile as his figure vanished from the array’s center, reappearing between the descending energy torrents and the battlefield.

"Finally lost patience, have you? Warcraft Orc Warriors." As he spoke, the white-furred wolfman drew the crystalline, heavy Tiger Soul Blade with his left hand. Raising the blade high, it erupted with countless violet-black rays that bathed the battlefield. The cloudless sky abruptly darkened as an oppressive, terrifying force—so heavy it stifled breath—suddenly weighed upon every warrior on the battlefield. Even these battle-hardened veterans felt their fur stand on end, a sense of impending doom as if billions of tons of raging ocean hovered overhead, ready to crash down at any moment.

The Warcraft Orc Warriors’ advance halted abruptly. None dared charge forward when the wolfman Sword Saint’s blade turned violet-black, for all knew it was the light of destruction capable of cleaving a city in half.

Fortunately, Chen Xuanfeng didn’t bring the blade down. Though now a Sword Saint with inexhaustible combat energy, wielding the "Chaos Sundering Violet Calamity" technique posed no strain. Given enough time to accumulate power, he might even recreate his legendary feat of toppling a city with one strike. But such a blow would leave no more than five Warcraft Orc Warriors alive. Not only did Chen Xuanfeng still hope to subdue these warriors, but even if he wished to kill, he’d have to consider broader opinions. These Warcraft Orcs were voluntary martyrs for the orc races’ future. Though currently loyal to the Splitfang Clan, neither the War Shrine nor the elders of various clans would tolerate significant losses among them.