Chapter 1656: Jarod Shadowsong
The Night Elves were the main force behind getting rid of the isnects in the War of the s.h.i.+fting Sands. A large number of Night Elf soldiers laid dead on this piece of land. The yellow sand of the Silithus desert was still stained red from the bloodshed.
The insects rushed out of the wall again and were met with a thousand years of built-up hatred.
Now, with the addition of the Night Elf army, there was an immense decrease of pressure on the players. Lu Li stopped a sentry, saying, “Dear warrior, thank you for your help. As you see, I’m also an Elf. My name is Lu Li. I would like to pay a visit to the highest commander of your army. May I please ask which general is leading the army this time?”
The sentry gave Lu Li a look that said he didn’t plan to pay attention these adventurers.
However, this one look changed his attention.
“In front of yourself, how can I be considered as a brave warrior? Under your command, Honourable Lu Li, you and your troops have bought us time to gather,” the sentry replied with great admiration. He was a Night Elf sentry. This race was immensely prideful in and of themselves. Not to mention, they were one of the best armies in Azeroth. As such, they would never put themselves in comparison with a mob of adventurers.
However, Lu Li was different. He had accomplished many First Clears with his command of his teammates.
What made the sentry even more impressed was that Lu Li’s command of what he saw as a motley crew had actually blocked the advancement of the insects. Moreover, he had maintained it for over 10 hours.
They, as the reinforcements, were so slow because there was another battle that had occurred before this one.
They had to resolve that battle before rus.h.i.+ng over here. They thought that all of Silithus was going to be lost. The insect army was spread across the plains. No one thought that they would be stopped by a motley crew led by this Elven commander in front of him.
He truly proved himself to be from the Elf race.
“The insects were bound to be destroyed regardless. Can you please introduce me to your Honourable Commander?” Lu Li asked.
“Of course. Please follow me,” this sentry said as he greeted to a fellow companion, then brought Lu Li towards the back.
As he walked, he gave Lu Li an introduction commander of the army. As such, Lu Li came to know that the commander this time was called Jarod Shadowsong. He was ordered to command a defensive quest against the insects. He led 5000 Night Elf sentries in addition to 100 Priestesses of the Moon.
This small number was not to be underestimated; the Night Elves as individuals were quite strong.
Even millions of players would not necessarily win against a Night Elf army of 100, not to mention, there were another 100 Priestesses of the Moon.
Lu Li wasn’t surprised by the scale of the sentinel troops. What Lu Li was surprised about was that Jarod Shadowsong was the one responsible for leading the troops.
Some people weren’t sure who Jarod Shadowsong was, but from his surname, people would think of someone else. Someone who sought revenge and was a Warder of Illidan and the Outlands – Maiev Shadowsong. They were siblings.
Now at this point, you might think that we need to trace back to the aristocratic lineage of the Shadowsong family name. But if you thought that, then that would be a big mistake.
In reality, when the last ancient war erupted, Jarod Shadowsong had already been promoted to the rank of Captain of the Sumara Guard, while his sister had also become a senior member of the Elune Sisterhood. The Shadowsong family didn’t have any aristocratic blood, but the brother and sister earned their final positions though their own talents and hard work.
In order to prevent a possible invasion, Jarod Shadowsong was patrolling the land of the Night Elves when he successfully captured Krasus the phantom dragon and threw him into jail.
Then, who was Krasus?
He was a Red Dragon who was originally called Claustraz, and his human form name was Krasus. As the youngest partner of Queen Alexstrasza, Claustraz was a rare magic genius out of the Red Dragons. Since he was young, he had already started to study the human race’s way of doing things. Through using his transformation abilities, Claustraz would often mix into these races without any notice.
A special type of both strange and strong phenomenon occurred to Krasus which prevented him from returning to his dragon form and made him very weak.
Under the successful persuasion of Krasus, Jarod Shadowsong was worried as to whether he would die before the hearing. As such, Jarod looked for a priestess from Elune to see if his illness could be cured.
He coincidentally b.u.mped into Tyrande Whisperwind, who agreed to lend a helping hand.
Tyrande Whisperwind cured Krasus’ illness. Hence, Krasus agreed to help Tyrande’s husband, Malfurion Stormrage, who had fallen into the Emerald Dream.
At the time, the Night Elf Commander in charge of fighting back the Burning Legion, Kotalus Rafincrest, witnessed how dedicated Jarod Shadowsong had been. He decided to give Jarod the battle-hardened sentinel troops to command.
Jarod and his sentries’ quest was to protect the four strongest casters of the Night Elf army – Malfurion Stormrage, Illidan Stormrage, Rhonin, and Krasus.
With their efforts, the demi-G.o.d of the Groves, Cenarius, appeared. Jarod Shadowsong couldn’t hide his surprise towards this. Cenarius called Malfurion’s soul back from the Emerald Dream. Malfurion recovered quickly after his soul had returned to his body.
Jarod Shadowsong, Krasus, Malfurion and Tyrande established their friends.h.i.+p based on this incident.
Malfurion and Krasus left the Night Elf army in the end to search for other dragons and to ask them to band together against the Burning Legion.
Even though Jarod Shadowsong couldn’t stop these two Mages from leaving, Kotalus Rafincrest still couldn’t bear blaming him.
After that, Kotalus Rafincrest angered Queen Azshara with his strong leaders.h.i.+p over the Night Elf army. She instructed Captain Varo’then to eliminate this aristocratic family. The a.s.sa.s.sination was successful, and Desdale Stareye became the new leader of the Night Elf army.
Unfortunately, Desdale Stareye lacked tactical literacy.
The invading demons pretended to retreat then suddenly attack from the sky above and caught the Night Elves off guard. Desdale Stareye was horrified to see the demons pouring boiling red liquid onto the heads of the Night Elf army. Hundreds of Night Elves were killed and even more died.
When Jarod Shadowsong asked Desdale Stareye what the next course of action was, this terrified aristocrat didn’t have any reply.
Jarod Shadowsong then suddenly found another team of demons circling the sky above Desdale Stareye, and tried to persuade him to take action. However, Desdale Stareye viewed Jarod Shadowsong’s suggestion with anger and threatened to throw him into jail if he didn’t move out the way.
Jarod Shadowsong was driven away.
The demons poured containers of boiling liquid which gushed down onto Desdale Stareye and his companions. Stareye died on the spot. His face was corroded to a point beyond recognition.
After Stareye died, the rest of the aristocrats were divided among the army’s new tactical strategies. Jarod Shadowsong was forced to fill in the blank spot of a subst.i.tute leader. His intuition and natural leaders.h.i.+p of the battlefield situation soon made him the new commander of the Night Elf army. The aristocrats all listened carefully to his command.
Jarod Shadowsong was full of doubt regarding his purpose towards this battle, but he received a big surprise very quickly.
Cenarius sent a large numbe rof demi-G.o.ds into the Night Elf army whilst agreeing to be under Jarod Shadowsong’s command.
With the demi-G.o.d’s approval, Jarod Shadowsong established an unprecedented prestige among the sentinel troops.
Just as Jarod Shadowsong was organising the Night Elves to turn the tables, he got the attention of the demon king, Archimonde. He was very disappointed that he didn’t see Malfurion Stormrage on the battlefield, so he decided to turn all this rage onto Jarod Shadowsong.
Archimonde believed that the Burning Legion’s victory was irreversible, so he was not at a rush. He was psychopathically teasing Jarod Shadowsong – slowly killing him. It was very likely that Archimonde was looking forward to the eventual defeat of Jarod Shadowsong’s iron will.
Before Jarod’s untreated dire wounds, Malfurion Stormrage and Illidan Stormrage combined their magic for the Well of Eternity.
All the demons, including Archimonde, were sucked into the Well of Eternity. They howled in rage and were thrown back into the Twisting Nether.
A great disaster created a new sea. The turbulent sea water chased the Night Elves onto Mount Hyjal.
Everyone else was burned to death, other than Jarod, who only suffered mild burns. With the help of Malfurion, Jarod and the other caught Illidan.
Jarod Shadowsong got Malfurion Stormrage to decide how to punish his younger brother, Illidan, who recklessly ignored the consequences of his actions.
Malfurion locked Illidan into jail for 10, 000 years.
As an unwilling commander, Jarod was grateful for the end of the battle. He dissolved this a.s.sembled army, and worked as a manager for a period of time. However, he never wanted to become a leader. He slowly asked more and more visitors to go find a new High Priestess of the Moon – Tyrande Whisperwind.
She was using wisdom and compa.s.sion to treat wounds after the war.
At this time, Tyrande had established a new Night Elf army, called Sentry. Jarod was behind the scenes on purpose as he believed he wasn’t a hero, and didn’t plan for other people to think the same.
One day, he suddenly disappeared, and only took a few personal items with him. He didn’t say where he went, nor did he say goodbye to anyone.
Ten thousand years later, the Sacred War of Mount Hyjal erupted. The Night Elves lost their eternal lives and started to face the trouble of old-age deaths. At this time, Jarod brought his ill wife, Sarah Hill, back to Darna.s.sus in hope of finding a cure for her. However, the disease had seeped into her bones, and Sarah Hill pa.s.sed away.
At the same time, one of the only alive high-level elves, Sindra, returned to the Night Elf community, and also brought back some inherited magic. However, this brought the hatred of Maiev Shadowsong who had returned from the Outland. She and her subordinate wardens started arranging an elaborate series of a.s.sa.s.sination operations aimed at the high-level elves. They had even kidnapped Malfurion.
Through his nimble observation skills and superb willpower, Jarod Shadowsong exposed his sister’s plot, but was almost killed by the psychotic Maiev.
With the help of Edric the Worgen, Jarod Shadwosong released Malfurion, and joined forced to defeat Maiev which forced her to run back to the Outlands.
He was a legend of the Night Elves. He was an old Elf in the minority that could be compared with Tyrande and Malfurion. Under normal circ.u.mstances, he as someone withdrawn from society, would not usually take on the commanding role and lead the sentinel troops.
However, Lu Li thought about it a little bit and understood everything.
Malfurion was still asleep in the Emerald Dream. Not long ago, the Nightmare Master tried to invade the world and destroy Malfurion’s physical body. There was of course no way that Tyrande would have left there. The other Night Elf elders, for example Staghelm and co., had already lost his son in the War of the s.h.i.+fting Sands and would no longer be able to return to command against the insects. Shandris was still not qualified to face up against this once-considered great race on his own.
In the end, Tyrande still called upon Jarod Shadowsong, the old veteran.
If you had to speak of the oldest living commander alive, then Jarod Shadowsong would no doubt be it. Lu Li, who was also considered as a professional commander, knew who this ancient epic name for sure.
Once he heard that the one in charge of this sentinel troop was this senior, he nearly couldn’t believe what he had heard.
“It’s just up ahead. I still have a battle mission, so I won’t go over with you.”
The sentry brought Lu Li to a ma.s.sive tree house, then realised that he had left his post without permission and left Lu Li in a hurry.
Lu Li exclaimed with admiration at the ancient towering tree deeply rooted in the desert in front of him.
It only took him a few minutes to walk from the front.
Following the location of the tree branches, a huge wooden ladder coiled around the branches, and finally was hidden from view.
It was the plant manipulation magic used by the Night Elves.
No wonder a pre-command post could be built in such a short amount of time. Many sentries took on new quests and ran up and down the wooden ladder. They then took off on a group of Nightsaber Mounts under the tree.
The two soldiers on patrol stopped Lu Li.
Lu Li announced his name and was released immediately/
“Ah so it’s Your Excellency Lu Li. His Excellency Jarod Shadowsong has been waiting for you.”
Following the wooden ladder, Lu Li saw this epic figure of the Night Elves on the very top of the command post.
He looked different from Tyrande, who looked ever-young. This Elf of the same generation exhibited a very obvious old age, which could be first seen by his head of white hair, as well as a face full of wrinkles that reflected the marks left by the pa.s.sage of time.
It wasn’t that type of handsome silver white, but instead a very aged plain white.