The number wasn't large; only about ten thousand high elves were captured and brought before Arthas.
These were the slower ones. When the Farstriders retreated from the Gates of Quel'Thalas, these high elf nobles were left behind in the forest. Those with better information abandoned their manors and fled north directly.
The unlucky ones were the villagers who were persuaded by the nobles to stay.
They knelt before Arthas, and whether willingly or forced, Arthas infused them with the energy of blood and shadow, transforming them into a new race: the San'layn.
However, the Scourge's gains in the Southern Ghostlands were far from enough to make up for their previous losses. Waging war to sustain war only works if you benefit from each battle. If you lose every time, then the Scourge has no reason to exist.
Soon, news came from an inside source among the high elves who had joined the Lich King: the main force of the high elves was in the Sunstrider's Temple!
Arthas marched north with his army.
In terms of troop quality, the lowest-ranking undead warriors in the Scourge were skeleton soldiers and mindless ghouls. Most of them were transformed from decaying corpses and had little to no intelligence. They only possessed some combat instincts, and their main purpose was to be used as cannon fodder to exhaust the enemy's ammunition and mana.
Better troops were the living. Killing them and then reanimating them with dark magic allowed them to retain more death energy within their fresh flesh, making them stronger in combat.
And the best were the combatants among the living. With their strong bodies in life, they had a high chance of being transformed into death knights!
Death knights were the backbone of the Scourge, and each one was used as a commander.
Because of Galen's various preparations in Lordaeron, not many influential Lordaeron nobles died. They were the pillars of those surviving towns.
Influential nobles were not like the decadent nobles in the royal city. They had fiefs, and within their fiefs, they had power comparable to a king. For the continuation of their families, they had to possess strength.
To protect their territory, strength was a prerequisite. This was a universally acknowledged rule among these nobles.
Those with magical talent would study the arcane arts, and those without would become warriors, training martial skills to strengthen their bodies. Wasn't that possible with money and hands?
However, after the profession of paladin emerged ten years ago, many noble warriors tried to become paladins, after all, they could cast spells!
It was because these nobles who became peripheral members or knight squires of the Silver Hand were willing to listen to Galen's advice that they survived.
With the decline of one and the rise of the other, Arthas didn't have enough manpower. Not only was the Ebon Blade still in the planning stages, but the Four Horsemen were even further from materializing.
Arthas's goal in finding the main force of the high elves was to use the undead sea to surround and kill them, selecting strong corpses to transform into more death knights.
While Arthas was acting, the high elves were not idle either. Silvermoon City was outwardly calm, and even with the addition of hundreds of thousands of civilians from outside the city, the magical city still didn't seem chaotic or crowded.
In the Sunstrider Royal Court, the plaza in front of the Sunfury Spire was filled with fully armed soldiers.
There were the Sunstrider family's last trump card: the Spellbreaker unit, as well as the two legions of the royalist faction: the Firewing Legion and the Guard Regiment.
These were newly built legions ten years ago. Thanks to Galen, Kael'thas's outstanding military achievements allowed the royalist faction to gain command of these two new legions.
With the two new legions, plus the Sunfury Legion and the SunEater Legion, as well as the sudden rise of the Skychaser Knights, the royalist faction was able to break free from its suppressed state and gradually contend with the Council faction.
Besides the high elf legions, there was also a human legion. Judging by the flag, it belonged to the Stromgarde Crusade.
The Scarlet Legion.
The first legion established by Galen had long since undergone a rebirth through class advancement, possessing five thousand seventh-tier elite infantry, three thousand seventh-tier stalkers, five hundred ninth-tier knight-captains, and five hundred seventh-tier priests.
Eight thousand high-level soldiers. This strength was enough to serve as any nation's trump card legion.
And its commander was a high elf.
Thranduil Sunstrider.
When Thranduil appeared in the Sunfury Spire after leaving Northrend, Anasterian did not believe that he was a collateral bloodline of the Sunstrider family, even though he knew most of the secrets of the royal family and was familiar with all the magic arrays of the Sunstrider Royal Court.
However, when the fire phoenix appeared, the Sun King was convinced. This was more convincing than a blood test!
Ten thousand years ago, in an era even older than Quel'Thalas, the ancestors of the Sunstriders signed a blood pact with a demigod-level phoenix lord from the Firelands. From then on, any talented descendant of the Sunstriders could summon their own unique phoenix!
Currently, Anasterian had one, Kael'thas had one, but those with thin bloodlines did not…
Thranduil, with his ability to summon a phoenix, was directly recognized by Anasterian. If Thranduil hadn't refused on the grounds that he had long since renounced his citizenship in the high elf kingdom, he would have been recognized as the Sun King's cousin and ennobled as a prince.
You are my grandson, but you want to be my brother?
"The Crusader Lord's army is truly elite…"
Anasterian said, looking at the eight thousand-strong Scarlet Legion. "Worthy of being the person foreseen in the ancestors' last words."
Thranduil didn't know if his grandson was genuinely marveling or continuing to probe him. None of that mattered. The decadence of the high elves alarmed him, so he could only perfunctorily say, "The Crusade has ten such legions!"
Thranduil glanced at the shocked Sun King and continued:
"I once thought that Dath'Remar… the Galen mentioned by the ancestors was the night elf hero Galen'Remar from ten thousand years ago. It wasn't until Prince Galen of Stromgarde suddenly rose to prominence that I was certain… the person mentioned by the ancestors had nothing to do with the night elves. Therefore, after the demise of the Council of Tirisfal, I joined the Crusade, hoping to observe Prince Galen up close."
Anasterian nodded, expressing his agreement with the words of this suddenly appearing cousin. He had also found it difficult to connect the Child of Prophecy with the Prince of Stromgarde until Kael'thas spent one hundred thousand gold coins to buy Galen's scroll…
From that moment on, the Prince of Stromgarde entered the Sun King's vision, and his every move in the orcish war was placed on his desk by the Sundial spies.
By analyzing this information, the Sun King always felt that the orcs' every move was anticipated by Galen. He was always one step ahead of the orcish warchief, disrupting all of the orcs' strategic goals.
And the troops he committed each time, along with the troops of other Alliance nations, were always evenly matched with the orcish horde!