Chapter 610: The Death of Archimonde
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Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Kalimdor, in the language of the night elves, meant ‘the land of eternal starlight’. Before the War of the Ancients, this continent had once been the only continent on Azeroth. But later, because of the invasion of the Burning Legion, the Well of Eternity had exploded, and this continent had been blasted into pieces. The two largest pieces that split apart were the current Eastern Kingdoms and Northrend.
After the Highborne followed Queen Azshara to the bottom of the sea, the night elves inherited the continent in the west and continued to use the name Kalimdor. Over the next ten thousand years, they continuously planted trees, forming an immense forest. This forest was known as Ashenvale, and the entire forest surrounded the night elves’ sacred mountain, Mount Hyjal, and guarded the World Tree Nordra.s.sil. And Nordra.s.sil’s power spread throughout the land through the forest, slowly repairing the damage caused by the explosion of the Well of Eternity.
The forest planted by the night elves who advocated the path of nature and druids formed a natural barrier. Its existence brought tremendous trouble to the advancement of the Scourge and the Burning Legion. The crowded forest made it difficult for the ground troops to march.
So Tichondrius had no choice but to command the undead of the Scourge to become loggers. At the same time, he used magical bombardment to open a path for the advancement of the Legion.
During this process, the Scourge and the Legion encountered the hara.s.sment of the night elves, and Tichondrius discovered that the forest provided great cover for the night elves. These purple-skinned long ears had a unique ability—their auras could become one with the forest. Their aura concealment and hiding abilities made it difficult for the demons to find them, causing considerable losses.
Due to this, Tichondrius thought of a vicious scheme. Since he couldn’t cut down all of the forest, he would completely contaminate it!
For this, Tichondrius used the Skull of Gul’dan!
Gul’dan was a famous warlock of the Orc Horde, the biggest lackey of the Burning Legion, and the leader of the First War. In the Second War, he had betrayed the Warchief Orgrim and the Horde. In pursuit of power, he had actually began to covet Sargeras’s power. He had searched for historical information and found the Tomb of Sargeras, which sealed Sargeras’s clone, in the Broken Isles. But he didn’t obtain the power he wanted because when he opened the tomb, what he saw was countless crazy demons.
After being torn apart by the demons, a surviving warlock of the Stormreaver clan brought Gul’dan’s head back to Draenor. Because this skull was full of the powerful fel energy that Gul’dan had when he was alive, the warlocks finally made it into a powerful artifact: the Skull of Gul’dan!
After a few twists and turns, this artifact finally flowed from Draenor to Dalaran. After Archimonde destroyed Dalaran, Tichondrius found this artifact in the ruins of the city.
The fel energy in this skull could be said to be endless. Perhaps it was because Gul’dan’s death was full of all kinds of intense negative emotions, causing this head to become an existence similar to a charger of fel energy. Tichondrius placed it in Ashenvale, and the fel energy flowing out of it continuously contaminated the forest.
The Skull of Gul’dan was used to deal with the night elves, and in order to deal with the orcs, Tichondrius sent his adjutant, the pit lord Mannoroth. This Abyss demon, who looked similar to Magtheridon, was one of the high-level leaders of the Burning Legion. During the First War, the blood that the orcs had drank was his demon blood. And this time, under Tichondrius’s instructions, Mannoroth used the same trick and dripped his demon blood into a mountain spring, completely contaminating it.
Grom h.e.l.lscream and his Warsong clan discovered this spring water, but they couldn’t resist the temptation. In the end, they drank the water contaminated by demon blood and obtained the powerful power brought by the blood again. At this moment, the Warsong clan, as the vanguard of the Horde, was fighting against the night elves. Under the influence of the blood, Grom h.e.l.lscream killed the night elf demiG.o.d Cenarius with his ax…
It had to be said that this dreadlord Tichondrius could really be called a master tactician. Under his designs, the orcs and the night elves should have been archenemies, and it should have been impossible for them to join forces. But unfortunately, he didn’t know about Medivh’s existence.
Medivh had finally managed to facilitate the trip to Kalimdor for the humans and orcs. Seeing that the opportunity for the alliance of the three races was approaching, he naturally couldn’t let this alliance fail. Therefore, with his and Jaina’s help, Thrall recovered the sanity of Grom h.e.l.lscream through a ritual. After his consciousness cleared up, Grom realized that he had almost made a tremendous mistake. Together with Thrall, he went to find Mannoroth to take revenge. But the pit lord was so powerful that even Thrall, who held the Doomhammer, was defeated. In the end, Grom used all the power of bloodl.u.s.t, burned his life force, and struck Mannoroth with his ax with all his might to kill him.
Mannoroth’s soul returned to the Twisting Nether, and with his death, the Warsong clan finally freed itself from the curse of the demon blood. And because Grom had lost all his strength, he finally died.
After Grom died, the hatred of the night elves naturally dissipated a lot. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Medivh came forward to preside over the gathering of the representatives of the humans, Jaina; the representative of the orcs, Thrall; and the representative of the night elves, Tyrande Whisperwind and Malfurion Stormrage, and exposed his ident.i.ty. After hearing that this prophet in front of them was actually the last Guardian, Medivh, the three races finally reached an alliance under the witness of Medivh.
At the same time, Archimonde finally set foot on Kalimdor. He was very annoyed by the nagas and couldn’t wait to destroy something to vent his anger. So under his orders, Tichondrius commanded the Burning Legion and the Scourge, and the invasion began to speed up.
But just as the Burning Legion and the Scourge were preparing to march toward Mount Hyjal, an unexpected situation happened.
Arthas and Kel’Thuzad, who had secretly entered Kalimdor, spent a lot of effort and finally found the lone Illidan Stormrage.
Although Tyrande had released Illidan from his cage, not only the night elves but even Illidan’s brother, Malfurion, found it difficult to trust him. In the eyes of the night elves, Illidan was simply a traitor. He had joined the Burning Legion during the War of the Ancients!
Although it was false, and Illidan had only joined as an undercover agent, he hadn’t told anyone about it. So after the battle, it was naturally understandable that the night elves mistook him for a traitor.
Illidan was alone, but he disdained to explain these things. But this personality made him completely isolated among his people, and no one was willing to accept his command. He could only hunt demons in the forest alone.
In Illidan’s heart, Tyrande was still very important, so he would naturally fulfill his promise to her. He was like a lone wolf who had temporarily obtained freedom after being imprisoned for ten thousand years, but he could only lick his wounds alone…
It was precisely under these circ.u.mstances that Arthas and Illidan met. Due to Arthas’s ident.i.ty as an undead, Illidan started fighting him after they met. But after fighting for a long time, the two of them found that they couldn’t do anything to each other, so they could finally communicate.
When Illidan asked Arthas what he wanted to do, Arthas told him that the current commander of the Burning Legion and the Scourge was a dreadlord named Tichondrius, and he had a powerful artifact, the Skull of Gul’dan, in his hands. He hoped that Illidan could steal this artifact from Tichondrius and said that the master he served would benefit from the failure of the Burning Legion.
Arthas’s words. .h.i.t Illidan’s weakness. Illidan had been pursuing great power all his life and was unscrupulous about it. Otherwise, the night elves wouldn’t have misunderstood him when he pretended to join the Legion during the War of the Ancients. So after hearing about a dangerous fel artifact like the Skull of Gul’dan, Illidan chose an extreme method.
After Arthas left, Illidan did as he said and found the Skull of Gul’dan that was contaminating the forest. After killing the surrounding demon guards, he held this artifact in his hand.
The fel energy in Skull of Gul’dan was so powerful that when Illidan absorbed it, it surged into his body and caused his elven body to undergo a tremendous mutation. Curved demon horns grew on his head, huge demon wings extended out from his back, and faint fel flames ignited under his blindfolded eyes. Strange demon runes appeared on the surface of his body, and under the support of the fel energy, the runes emitted a dark green glow.
Contaminated by the power of fel energy, Illidan became a demon. But strangely, he maintained his mind during this mutation and wasn’t affected by the powerful negative emotions in the fel energy, causing him not to lose himself even though he became a demon.
Then with the help of this demon body, Illidan entered the sphere of influence of the Burning Legion, found the commander Tichondrius, and suddenly attacked him.
Tichondrius thought that Illidan was just an ordinary demon soldier and didn’t expect him to suddenly attack him. He hurriedly met the enemy, but Illidian directly killed him!
Although Tichondrius was the leader of the dreadlords, the dreadlords were good at trickery and were not very powerful. Even though they were also at the demon lord level, their combat strength was not outstanding. And Illidan had absorbed all the power of the Skull of Gul’dan and also reached the demon lord level. It wasn’t surprising for him to be able to kill Tichondrius under a surprise attack.
Accompanied by the unique wail of dreadlords, Tichondrius’s soul was forcibly pulled into the Twisting Nether. Who knew how long it would take him to resurrect… And Illidan took advantage of the chaos to escape from the encirclement of the demons.
When Archimonde received the news and rushed over, all he saw was chaos and Tichondrius’s corpse. He flew into a rage.
Losing Tichondrius, a master tactician, was undoubtedly a great blow to the Legion’s command system. Archimonde was actually not good at commanding battles. As a commander, he often fought recklessly on the front line. To him, fighting and killing were much more interesting than commanding an army. Tichondrius’s death made the subsequent plan to attack Mount Hyjal much more difficult.
Archimonde did not feel good, but at the same time, the fleeing Illidan did not feel good either. When he appeared in front of Tyrande and Malfurion in his terrifying demon body, the two of them almost attacked him together. After he revealed his ident.i.ty, Tyrande and Malfurion looked even more disappointed.
They were not happy that Illidan had eliminated Tichondrius, nor were they happy that he had destroyed the Skull of Gul’dan and saved Ashenvale. They only saw that Illidan had sold his soul to pursue power and degenerated to become a demon!
The heartbroken Tyrande and Malfurion directly asked Illidan to leave and forbade him from ever appearing on the land of the night elves again. They no longer recognized Illidan’s ident.i.ty as an elf.
Facing the rebuke of the person he loved the most and his brother, Illidan didn’t explain anything or try to salvage the situation. He just turned around and left alone…
The Battle of Mount Hyjal began. After losing Tichondrius, Archimonde had no choice but to command this attack personally. His tactics were very simple. He gathered the combat strength of the Burning Legion and the Scourge and charged forward recklessly.
Although the Legion had lost a lot of combat strength when crossing the sea, Archimonde had summoned a large number of demons from Argus. In addition, he was personally commanding, so he was very confident.
At the foot of Mount Hyjal, Archimonde looked up at the enormous emerald-like sky above his head. This was the crown of the World Tree Nordra.s.sil. This ma.s.sive World Tree used the power of nature to cover the mountains within tens of thousands of kilometers. Under the interference of this power of nature, the portal tactics that the Legion were good at in the past couldn’t be executed, so it could only rely on ground troops to advance. But as it advanced, the Legion encountered heavy resistance.
The Human Alliance defended the first line of defense. This Alliance army led by Jaina was the only remaining human force. Their homeland, Lordaeron, had been destroyed by the Scourge, and a large number of elites had been lost in the battle to protect their homeland. Arthas had killed most of the paladins of the Knights of the Silver Hand, and the powerful magic troops of the Alliance had been destroyed along with Dalaran.
But even so, they tenaciously fought a b.l.o.o.d.y battle with the Burning Legion because they knew that they had no way out. This was a battle that concerned the destruction of the world.
Relying on the swords, s.h.i.+elds, and firearms in their hands, the Human Alliance repelled several attacks from the Legion. They were entirely relying on their blood and will to resist the demons. Even Archimonde was surprised by this combat will. In the end, he mobilized the frost dragon troops and finally forced the humans to abandon this defense line and retreat.
Roy wasn’t the only one who wanted dragon corpses. When forming the Scourge Army, Ner’zhul had gotten Arthas to find a batch of dragon corpses in Northrend and transform them into frost dragons. But there were not many frost dragons, and the frost dragons resurrected through necromancy couldn’t compare to the dragon liches under Roy. They only knew one elemental power—frost.
After defeating the defense line of the Human Alliance, Archimonde was very happy. He continued to go up and encountered the Horde at the second defense line. The human troops that withdrew had converged with the Horde. Compared to humans, the orcs were born with strong physical bodies, so the combat strength of the orc troops was also stronger. In particular, the addition of trolls and taurens enriched the orcs’ defense line, and the technological equipment of the goblins played a huge role during combat.
Countless doomguards and summoned giant infernals of the Burning Legion attacked the defense line of the Horde one after another, but they couldn’t open a gap in the defense line. Bloodthirsty cries and thunder constantly resounded among the orcs. Even though the battle was as cruel as a meat grinder, the orcs didn’t retreat at all. They hoped that they could die in battle with honor and use their sacrifices to win glory for themselves. The orcs, who had been enslaved by the Burning Legion, could finally have the chance to show their determination to be free. Thus, every orc warrior was prepared to die honorably for freedom like Grom.
Unable to open the situation for a long time, the Legion wasted a lot of time in the process of advancing. In the end, Archimonde could no longer sit still and took action personally. Under his powerful magical bombardment, the orcs suffered heavy casualties, so they had no choice but to give up the defense line and retreat again.
The final defense line was defended by the night elves. The elven troops led by Malfurion and Tyrande were in charge of facing the Burning Legion led by Archimonde. The night elves had saved the world more than once, and the fate of the world fell into their hands once again.
Archimonde, who had been tenaciously blocked in the first two defense lines, mobilized all his troops. He knew that time meant victory. The demons of the Legion and night elves clashed, and rains of meteor and fire fell from the sky and smashed into the ground. Even the sky was red from the burning flames. But the night elves, like the humans and orcs, didn’t retreat at all. They were fighting to protect their homes and the world. Their lofty ideals turned into strong willpower that supported them in fighting against the Burning Legion.
Seeing that the previous situations were about to repeat, Archimonde could only take action again. Although he, the commander, had to attack these insignificant races personally to break the stalemate, making him feel ashamed, he still chose to put down his pride and take action himself.
The flames of fel energy spread rapidly, turning everyone who came into contact with it into charred bones. Archimonde’s power was unstoppable!
Under Archimonde’s lead, the Burning Legion broke through the defense line of the night elves, and Archimonde finally arrived in front of several roots of Nordra.s.sil.
He began to climb this ma.s.sive World Tree because he sensed that most of Nordra.s.sil’s power was concentrated in the tree crown at the top. The higher he went, the easier it would be for him to absorb Nordra.s.sil’s immense magic power.
But just as Archimonde climbed onto the World Tree, Malfurion, who had been preparing for a long time on a nearby mountain peak, blew his horn.
Due to the human and orc allies sparing no effort to buy time, Malfurion completed a ritual. He used the horn to awaken countless ancient souls sleeping in Ashenvale. These ancient souls were transformed from the dead creatures that once inhabited the forest. They hadn’t dissipated but sank into slumber under the protection of the World Tree. Now that Nordra.s.sil was in danger, it was time for these ancient souls to contribute their strength.
This was the trump that the night elves had meticulously set up for Archimonde…
Countless souls turned into countless light spots and gathered from all directions like a torrent. Then they spontaneously gathered and attacked Archimonde, who was climbing the World Tree.
The only attack method of these souls was to detonate themselves. But the damage caused by the self-destruction of these souls also targeted the soul itself. Under this endless tide of self-destruction, Archimonde’s body didn’t suffer any damage, but his soul was being overwhelmed!
Even though he was a demon king and had an incomparably powerful soul, he was still unable to resist the self-destruction of hundreds of millions of souls. The explosion of every ancient soul would cause a wisp of his soul to be consumed. And when the consumption of the soul was too great, the consequences would follow. Archimonde began to lose control of the powerful magic power in his body!
The violent magic power began to run around in his body, and his chest began to glow with the light of magic power. As more and more magic power began to riot, the light gradually spread all over his body, and it started to show signs of collapsing.
“No! Impossible!” Archimonde realized something and looked at his body in panic. He suddenly thought of something and raised his demon claws to the distant sky as though he was asking for help from someone.
“Osiris…”
But before he could finish speaking, the light of magic power erupted from his body, and an extremely intense flash constantly illuminated all of Ashenvale. Archimonde only had time to let out a painful cry before his body exploded.
As his body broke into pieces, rioting magic power surged out wildly. This high-energy magic power instantly ignited the air and turned the surroundings into a sea of flames. Starting from several roots of Nordra.s.sil, endless flames spread out in all directions, and countless trees and plants were instantly burned into ashes.
The ash-like ground appeared and was still spreading. The night elves who witnessed all of this felt distress and joy because no matter what, they had finally killed Archimonde!
But only one person didn’t smile. He was Malfurion Stormrage. Not only because he heard the name Archimonde shouted just now—Osiris—but because he had already received Ysera’s warning in the Emerald Dream. He knew that although they had dealt with Archimonde, there was still another commander of the Burning Legion…