Duke's spell damage wasn't particularly devastating - couldn't even match the bone-shattering impact of Grom's legendary axe.
What a humiliating kick in the teeth!
Arthas had orchestrated this elaborate sche, finally securing the perfect opportunity to eliminate one of the enemy mages first. Not only was his brilliant strategy thwarted, but he'd actually yanked a bomb directly into his own face?
Though he'd abandoned all vanity upon embracing his Death Knight transformation, having his features charred black by the explosion was still monuntally embarrassing.
Arthas felt utterly crushed by cosmic injustice!
Suddenly he unleashed a spine-chilling roar that echoed across the battlefield.
To casual observers, it appeared he was rely clearing his throat irritably. Only Duke, blessed with the system AI's enhanced perception, could detect the sickly green luminescence spreading outward.
Blast and damnation - this maniac was unleashing plague contagion!
"Scatter and cleanse!" Though in truth, both paladins were already acting without Duke's urgent command.
Divine radiance purged the insidious plague already seeping into the orc champions' bloodstreams, but couldn't eliminate the airborne pestilence saturating their surroundings.
At this critical mont, Duke struck with devastating precision.
A colossal ice tornado spanning dozens of ters erupted from nowhere, engulfing the entire combat zone.
This frozen tempest possessed limited direct lethality, but everyone could sense the atmosphere becoming dramatically purified.
Gone was the battlefield's suffocating miasma of spilled blood that made breathing feel like drowning in crimson plasma. Vanished too was the nauseating stench of spreading plague particles. Only the invigorating holy radiance emanating from both paladins remained.
Now even the most brain-addled fool could recognize that Arthas's tactics were being systematically dismantled by Duke's superior strategy.
Orgrim wiped blood from his split lip and spoke in the ancient shamanic tongue: "Go'el, observe carefully how Duke drives his quarry toward inevitable doom step by thodical step. This art of strangling prey with minimal cost represents essential knowledge for any competent leader."
Thrall's pupils contracted with sudden understanding.
Absolutely correct!
Regardless of whether Horde and Alliance would clash again after this apocalyptic battle, one truth remained undeniable: the Horde no longer commanded seemingly inexhaustible manpower reserves. Orcs were indeed a mighty and valorous race, but unfortunately only slightly over 100,000 remained. Two more conflicts of this magnitude would achieve their complete extinction.
One had to acknowledge that Duke's tactical approach offered the orcs their best chance of survival.
At this stage, Thrall had yet to master shamanic mysteries, and his warrior skills remained frustratingly incomplete. While ostensibly holding the rear guard, he was actually absorbing invaluable lessons in combat strategy and battlefield command.
anwhile, after the Elf Prince began providing precise magical support to the front-line fighters, Arthas finally found himself in a genuinely precarious position.
Duke's periodic interventions weren't sufficient tornt - Antonidas stood beside Duke as well!
Though the Kirin Tor's Speaker had accumulated considerable years, an Archmage of the Dawn remained an Archmage of the Dawn, representing mortal civilization's absolute pinnacle of magical might. How could such power be casually dismissed?
Arthas hesitated montarily, uncertain whether deploying that particular trump card was prudent.
At this crucial juncture, Duke spoke with asured authority: "Target acquired and locked?"
"Locked and loaded!" Antonidas stroked his magnificent white beard, radiating the unmistakable aura of a Solar Archmage.
"Then I'll trouble you for this demonstration, Master." Duke offered a respectful half-bow.
"For the Alliance's eternal glory!" Upon completing this declaration, Antonidas executed a Blink across two hundred ters, materializing instantly amidst a massive horde of zombies and ghouls.
For any ordinary mortal, this would constitute elaborate suicide.
For a master of his transcendent caliber, this represented the perfect stage for unrestricted magical expression.
An average mage's Frost Nova possessed re yards of effective range.
Antonidas's Frost Nova resembled dropping a ten-thousand-ton glacier into a perfectly calm ocean, generating absolutely catastrophic frozen tsunamis reaching fifteen ters in height.
"By all the elents!" Within a hundred-ter radius, regardless of whether they were pathetic zombies, skeleton soldiers, ghouls, the more formidable cave demons and gargoyles, or even semi-ethereal banshees, all transford into pristine ice sculptures under Antonidas's ultimate technique.
"WHOOOOSH——" An ice storm erupted with biblical fury, and within the howling arctic winds, Archmage Antonidas's robes billowed dramatically with thunderous snapping sounds.
Ice sculptures from the previous instant shattered into countless crystalline fragnts, swept away by the supernatural gale the next mont.
Subsequently, an enormous winged entity previously invisible was violently expelled from concealnt.
This creature stood over five ters tall, possessed massive purple-blue bat wings, and wore elaborately carved armor of blue trimd with silver. Upon witnessing the outward-curving goat horns adorning its skull, a na that struck terror into every heart materialized - Dreadlord!
Throughout the Burning Legion's endless campaigns of expansion, conquest, and annihilation, nurous races had joined their infernal ranks, with Dreadlords representing the absolute elite among them.
These horned abominations rivaled the Eredar's most accomplished warriors in raw power.
After tens of millennia, they had achieved complete integration within the Burning Legion, serving as high-ranking commanders throughout the demonic hierarchy.
This particular Dreadlord seed genuinely surprised at being forcibly revealed.
Imdiately, he smiled with sinister courtesy and placed his left hand upon his chest in aristocratic greeting: "Salutations to you, mighty champion of humanity. I am Dreadlord Kel'zathanier. Might I have the distinct honor of learning your distinguished na?"
His politeness was so exaggerated that observers couldn't help but compare this hideous demon to so nobleman's perfectly mannered butler.
Antonidas snorted with icy disdain: "You'll learn my na just before your destruction!" Following this pronouncent, he raised his staff, conjuring a colossal and absolutely devastating wave of glacial energy that surged toward the Dreadlord.
The next instant, man and demon comnced their deadly chase.
In the blink of an eye, both combatants had vanished to parts unknown.
Only then did Duke finally stride into the battle circle as casually as if strolling through his private garden.
"Listen well, Arthas! I'm offering you one final opportunity. If you can still summon reinforcents from your precious Lich King, then do so imdiately. Once I begin in earnest, you'll have no chance whatsoever."
That represented absolute confidence incarnate!
It embodied pure, undiluted arrogance!
Around them, hundreds of thousands of warriors clashed in apocalyptic fury.
Every heartbeat, every breath, every fleeting second witnessed lives extinguished and subsequently consud by the Sky of the Undead's malevolent power.
Comrades one mont, mortal enemies the next!
Such was this chaotic and utterly disorganized battlefield's nature.
Yet regarding Duke, there existed an overwhelming sensation that nothing in creation could escape his calculations - that everything would inevitably fall within his grasp.
Thrall gripped his steel battle-axe with white knuckles while clenching his left fist until bones creaked. Despite the frost-white surroundings and frigid atmosphere, Thrall discovered perspiration beading across his brow.
So this was Edmund Duke - the legendary tactician who had annihilated millions of orcs and single-handedly reversed the entire war's trajectory?
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