The Duke of Bath was thrilled by Jia Zhengyi's words, but reason told him that doing so seemed a bit inappropriate.

"My dear Jia, I only have 50,000 troops under my command, which seems a bit insufficient... That fortress won't be easy to take!"

Duke Bass pondered, silently calculating in his mind: "If the garrison is around 200,000, then at least a million elite troops would be needed to have a chance of taking it down. Although I don't know how many orcs are stationed inside the fortress, they are definitely no less than 200,000."

"Whether we can win or not, we should at least try."

Jia Zhengyi smiled indifferently: "Let's test the waters with a night raid first. It's unexpected that the Duke still has 50,000 troops."

He spoke quite sincerely. The army in the vicinity of this mountain only numbered around ten thousand. I didn't expect the Duke to be hiding something.

Duke Bass smiled upon hearing this: "My dear Ja, I have contact with the surrounding armies as well, and I can regroup them if necessary."

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's find them! The sooner the better, and give the orcs a good beating!"

Jia Zhengyi spoke in a serious tone and with a firm attitude.

He was in a hurry, after all, there were only half a month left for the phased task, and if he didn't finish it, he would have to start all over again from task 1.

"OK."

Duke Bass nodded in agreement, after all, he was now asking for their help, and these 40,000 elves were the main force to retake the fortress.

Since the elves don't see any problem with it, let's do it!

Soon, the human armies on the mountain split up, and patrols rode off in waves to contact the surrounding armies.

Over the next two hours, Xiao Linlin communicated via headset, directing Jia Zhengyi and Ellie to represent the elven army at Duke Bass's pre-battle meeting.

Both sides fully exchanged information on their respective military strength, personnel size, troop types, and supplies, and also took stock of the siege supplies.

Duke Bass was ambitious; he had been preparing to reclaim his lost territory. In fact, it could be said that he had a plan for the fortress to be breached long before the orcs attacked the city, and he had hidden the necessary siege equipment in many secret locations in the wilderness.

These items, once collected, would certainly meet the war preparation needs for attacking the fortress, but the Duke had not been confident before, so he had not mobilized these hidden resources.

With the addition of elves, there was no need to hide these machines any longer; they were all brought out and prepared for use.

In the exchanges between the two sides, the division of command authority is also a detail that needs to be clearly defined.

Furthermore, during the negotiations, Duke Bass was designated as the main commander of the joint forces on the surface, while the elves were directed by the overall strategic direction, but the specific battle plans were still the responsibility of the elves themselves.

Within the elf community, command was naturally held openly by Elrere and eighteen pure-blooded elves, with Xiao Linlin providing covert assistance.

As for Lyanna, although she has conquered these elves, she is not fond of being in charge of war command; she is more skilled in one-on-one combat or small-scale cooperative battles.

After everything was finalized, the nearby human armies gradually gathered here.

Although the total number of human troops has not yet exceeded 50,000, the Duke does not want to wait any longer. Losing 10,000 or 20,000 human troops is not a big deal, since tonight's siege plan is led by the elves.

Since it's just a test, the war objective is much clearer: first, sound the war horn of counter-offensive, use counter-offensive means to attract the attention of scattered human armies in the surrounding area, so that more remnants will gather here, and also give the human armies in the rear a clearer support target.

After all preparations were completed, the human and elven allied forces marched forth in a grand procession. The humans were responsible for dragging and controlling the siege equipment, while the elves ran around on the flanks and rear to provide support.

During the night march, the core command team, consisting of Duke Bass, Jia Zhengyi (Xiao Linlin), and Ellerie, maintained close communication.

During the conversation, Jia Zhengyi seemed to have thought of something and asked Duke Bass, "Your Grace, before I came to the front lines from Balota City, I heard that there were also elves helping us at the fortress front? Where are they? Why haven't I seen them?"

Duke Bass was taken aback upon hearing this, then spoke somewhat awkwardly: "They have already left... According to the historical alliance between the Elf Queen and the Human Empire, the elves do not actually need to provide much assistance to the humans; they are more flexible in their approach."

"They were sent by the Queen to provide support and assist in the defense of the fortress. After the fortress was captured, they had no obligation to help us retake it, so they left naturally."

Duke Bass paused, then said in a low voice as if complaining, "Actually, there aren't many of them, only seven ordinary elves in total. Although one of them is pureblood, the help they can provide is really limited."

Seven elves are simply not enough in a battlefield with millions of players; at most, they can only help kill some orcs.

But even if they are good at killing, how many can seven elves kill?

No wonder Duke Bass never mentioned the elves in the fortress; it seems he was quite dissatisfied with the Elf Queen's perfunctory attitude towards the terms of the alliance.

Upon hearing this, Jia Zhengyi didn't say much, but simply patted the Duke on the shoulder to offer his comfort.

This behavior might have been inappropriate before, but Jia Zhengyi was really good at it. In just a short time, he had built a good relationship with the Duke by talking about night raid strategies, and their way of getting along was quite like a friendship between people of different ages.

Of course, the Duke of Bath's deliberate flattery also played a part in this.

Because war machines are slow to move, and because the army is large, smaller groups of orcs nearby spotted the army's marching target early on.

Although the elven patrols, guided by Jia Zhengyi's precise location reports, sniped and killed the orc soldiers, the sheer number of orc casualties alerted the orcs inside the fortress. They dispatched shamans to conduct long-range reconnaissance and pinpoint the location of the attacking army.

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!