Finally, amidst the furious roars and weird shrieks of the Greenskins, Al turned away stylishly and retreated north.
The Greenskins could only stand on the other side of the massive fissure created by the spell, howling in impotent rage.
The elite Black Orc guards and their commander—the hulking Big 'Un known as "Tank"—watched as these red and black enemies held them off in the valley and inflicted massive casualties before withdrawing completely intact.
To wait for the northward army to block the valley exit and cut the Beastmen off, the Greenskins had paused their offensive.
This gave Al the time to rest and reorganize before his rapid rotation.
Along the way, they even had time to clean up the battlefield.
While the Greenskins hadn't been scared into a rout yet, they were restrained by their general and no longer blindly charged their "Good Boyz" into the Chaos Halberds of the Heavily Armored Khorngors on such unfavorable terrain.
During his retreat, Al didn't forget the altar for his stepmother—or rather, his adoptive mother—the Goddess Lileath.
When the valley battle broke out, he personally brought several knight attendants to airdrop and build an altar for the fifth deity manifested in the tribe.
The Moon Maiden of the High Elves, the Fay Enchantress of Bretonnia, the Lady of the Mists Ladrielle... and a host of other personas Al didn't even know.
The Everchosen announced that all the military merit and glory reaped in this bloody battle were sacrifices dedicated to this Goddess.
By personally overseeing the battle, he ensured his four "original" Mother Goddesses—who plotted grand schemes all day—wouldn't get jealous and sabotage him.
Though the odds were tiny, one could never be too sure...
He dismantled the crude altar, carrying the idol himself and packing up the other components.
Calculating the condition of thirty thousand blood sacrifices, he had completed roughly one-fifth of the goal.
Ahem...
This blocking action, personally commanded by Al (take notes!), dealt a heavy blow to Greenskin morale.
It thwarted their scheme to sweep through the Piña Forest, destroy the tribe, and then march north through Piña to strike the northern heartlands of the tribal ally, the Estalians!
It greatly delayed the Greenskin offensive momentum, buying favorable time for the subsequent defensive counter-attack...
As for the "tactical rotation" after the successful block, that doesn't need to be mentioned further.
Al's retreat wasn't fast. The Greenskin unit that had branched off to flank him seemed to have received news that the battle was over and chose not to press their luck.
Al had originally intended to take a bite out of them if the opportunity was right, tearing down another thousand or so.
He successfully rendezvoused with his reserve army and retreated north to the pre-selected core defensive zone—the inevitable path for the Greenskins' northward march—to garrison and rest.
In a cleared forest flatland, a fortress had already been constructed.
Outwardly it was crude, but its defensive capability was passable. From time to time, squads of Estalians retreated here to join the garrison.
The fortress was almost entirely wooden. The material used for the outer casing was a special timber as hard as iron or stone.
Al wasn't worried about the Greenskins pulling a "fire-burns-wood-city" stunt.
The Shamans prayed and held rituals day and night, casting a massive "Enchantment" on this fortress that was still being expanded.
Generally speaking, such a spell required one or more powerful casters.
For power scaling, look at the mage-heroes from the last End Times. Pick any one: Balthasar Gelt, Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic, fellow enthusiast of building walls along with the First Emperor of Qin.
It required an ample supply of low-to-mid-tier mages and priests to maintain the spell through magic and faith, plus a staggering amount of materials that probably only a whole kingdom could provide.
But Al didn't need the effect to last forever; a short duration was enough.
Besides, in the Piña Forest, the Winds of Magic were... temporarily free.
Thus, more than half of his Shaman Mage corps were exhausted, pouring their energy into fortifying this city.
Fortunately, Al considered that the Greenskins might not follow his logic.
He had the Shamans make the spells trigger-based—they would only activate once the enemy began the assault and then persist for a period.
To ensure the Greenskins would value this place, Al arranged for his subordinates to create various types of hype.
This included hastily clearing fields only to leave them scorched and abandoned, and placing bizarre shrines and stone statues comparable to Skaven clan icons or Lizardman carvings.
All of this was to make the Greenskin things believe this "hard" little city was a holy site, a central hub, or the birthplace of the tribe, so they would set their hearts on crushing it.
After all, Al already had a criminal record of hunting a behemoth and gifting its remains to the Estalians as a "thousand-year-old tribal holy relic" to witness their alliance.
What was a little more deception against Greenskins?
Mortal morale was high.
Clearly, after a series of minor victories, the "Orc-phobia" and the "Greenskin WAAAAAGH! is unstoppable" defeatist sentiments had been severely weakened.
Al led his units to draw the Greenskin main force, letting out small batches of "small fry" for the human regiments led by Khorngors to attack or ambush.
Most of these battles were victorious. Only a tiny few failed due to various reasons, and even they mostly managed to retreat safely.
Only a few small warbands were broken or heavily damaged; none were completely annihilated.
Tasting victory for the first time in ages, many Estalians wept with joy, singing and dancing in the camp, holding their war banners in prayer.
As Griffons streaked across the sky, the humans celebrating on the ground cast respectful gazes.
These majestic beasts had now become a totem of the Bloodmother faith among the mortals: bellicose, glorious, and noble.
And loyal.
Originally, the Southern Kingdom didn't have much of a beast-totem worship tradition.
But now, these Estalians who had converted to the Four Gods began to worship these powerful monsters which, due to their proximity to Al, had taken on an air of holy avatars.
When the Everchosen's figure appeared in the camp, the wave of fanatical cheering reached a peak.
The Beastmen, on the other hand, were quite calm.
To them, such "minor" victories were the norm.
They didn't quite understand the joy and excitement of the Estalians who had been pounded the whole way.
The refugees had dragged their families from their homes, fled to foreign lands, lived under others' roofs, faced the shadow of famine, endured tyranny, and suffered Kingdom conscription...
After all that negativity, they mustered the courage to step onto the battlefield and then achieved consecutive victories against the terrifying enemy that had caused their kingdom's decline.
Al saw this as a great opportunity. He hadn't prepared a speech and didn't feel like talking, so he didn't plan on addressing them.
Instead, he signaled the officers of the Blood Oath Brotherhood to take the chance to conduct more preaching among the Mortal Auxilia.
They led the victorious warriors in prayer and scripture reading under the shrines and banners of the Four Mothers—especially the Bloodmother.
Constantly thinking of recruiting sheep and gathering faith for the four Goddesses, Al felt he was truly exhausting himself...
After all, he had just been sucking up to his stepmother right in front of the four Goddesses.
Al knew he had no choice, but he felt a bit guilty.
It was like how the Centaur Girl and Goat Mom didn't care if he added people to his harem, but he still felt inexplicably guilty after sleeping with the widow.
He spent his days sticking close to the two harem masters: one named an adoptive mother but acting more like a foster father, and the other with no motherly title but whose interactions were entirely maternal—the Centaur Girl and the Goat Mom.
After inspecting the progress of the frontline defensive works and finding no major issues, Al prepared to return to the main tribal camp.
Kael'thas Simon and Misha would be stationed here.
With his eldest daughter and son to restrain her, Al wasn't afraid of the wolf-girl Hera running wild.
His fourth daughter Hera—the "Big Wolf-Girl"—combined traits like wolf ears, fangs, tsundere tendencies, and the nature of a clingy big dog.
Al truly liked this "wolf-dog daughter" in his heart, despite her being a handful.
Another child who worried Al as much as Hera was his third son... daughter Barbatos.
Her long-term androgynous charm frequently confused her little father. This time, he simply kept her by his side instead of letting her go to the front lines immediately.