Duke wasn't just a legend anymore.
He was THE legend that made other legends wet themselves in terror.
The stuff of ballads sung by drunk bards who'd probably embellish how a dirt-poor peasant boy clawed his way to glory through sheer bloody-minded determination and an alarming amount of magical explosions.
This was the pinnacle achievent that drove mages to either worship him or plot his assassination in equal asure.
Countless new generation mages harbored such obsessive admiration and desperate expectations for Duke that they'd probably build shrines in their closets if they thought they could get away with it.
Especially after Duke led the Scarlet Crusade and obliterated the Scourge's siege of Dalaran with the subtlety of a divine sledgehamr to the face, this fanatical devotion reached levels that would make cultists blush.
To be brutally honest, the mages of Dalaran couldn't muster much resistance to Duke's announcent that he'd challenge the Speaker position. After all, Antonidas had indeed withered into a fossil over the years, and his mind-numbingly conservative policies had about as much popular support as a plague rat at a dinner party.
Duke's challenge arrived with all the grace of a catapult boulder through a window, but nobody was particularly shocked by the audacity.
But by the frozen balls of Arthas...
This shouldn't be delivered with such bone-chilling arrogance, the kind of tone that practically wished Antonidas would keel over and die on the spot.
Mograine and Abendis felt their ears betray them completely.
Kael'thas's normally perfect elvish features twisted into a mask of pure shock and horror that would've been codic if it weren't so terrifying!
What in the na of all the hells had Duke just unleashed from his mouth?
During Lordaeron's golden age of insufferable pomposity, those were words so arrogant that even Terenas—that walking monunt to royal ego—wouldn't dare breathe them aloud. And they'd just erupted from Duke's lips?
Was Duke transforming into the kind of tyrant that made demon lords look reasonable?
Even Antonidas, the target of this verbal assassination, sat there like a stunned fish.
At this mont, with every eye in the chamber boring into him with the intensity of siege weapons, Duke casually shrugged his shoulders and exhaled like he'd just finished a particularly satisfying al.
"Alright, enough theatrics. I was just demonstrating what would happen if so galomaniacal bastard seized control of the Alliance."
Mograine and Abendis: -...-
Kael'thas and the entire council : -...-
Every spectator within a fifty-mile radius: -...-
By Thrall's green ass! Duke, what kind of psychological warfare are you waging? You drop sothing that apocalyptic and then act casual about it? Are you trying to give everyone simultaneous heart attacks?
In the next breath, Duke's expression crumbled into sothing that would make professional mourners weep.
His voice dropped to a tone so mournful it could've raised the dead just to console him: "I've been cursed with a supernatural ability since childhood. I never genuflected before the Holy Light, but I can detect evil with the precision of a bloodhound sniffing out corruption. Fifteen years ago, when I was nothing but a pathetic magic apprentice, I witnessed sothing that seared itself into my soul forever..."
Duke's seemingly random dive into ancient history made every Alliance leader's blood freeze solid in their veins.
Fifteen years ago, as a magic apprentice?
That ant...
"Fortune blessed with admission to the Stormwind Royal School of Magic. Back then, the most devastatingly powerful wizard alive, Lord divh himself, announced publicly that he'd accept as his disciple. I refused. While I masqueraded as youthfully arrogant at the ti, claiming I wanted to surpass greatness itself, do you want to know the real reason?"
Nobody had the faintest clue why Duke had rejected such an opportunity.
However, at this precise mont, everyone's minds snapped to Duke's legendary debut—that earth-shattering battle against divh when the demon lord Sargeras was puppeteering the Guardian's corpse in Karazhan.
Everyone's thoughts crashed into the sa terrifying realization.
They understood, but certainty eluded them.
Everyone turned suspicious glares toward Antonidas, who appeared disgustingly healthy for his age.
Duke continued with the gravity of a funeral dirge: "Exactly! Your worst fears are confird! I possess an unnatural talent for piercing through deception to see the rotting truth beneath. Back then, I could detect instantly that divh had beco a demon's at puppet. Unfortunately, I was just a worthless magic apprentice, and my warnings would've been dismissed as the ravings of an ambitious fool. But now..."
Duke's finger shot toward Antonidas with the precision of a crossbow bolt, tears streaming down his face in rivers of anguish. "Now, by my authority as Alliance Commander, I issue this order—Mograine and Abendis, unleash Exorcism upon Antonidas with everything you possess!"
Exorcism was harmless against ordinary mortals, but to undead and demons, it was liquid agony concentrated into spell form!
Typically, mages and priests maintained mutual loathing that bordered on homicidal.
This represented an ideological war between those who embraced the rational arcane arts—explainable through theory and mathematics—and those who surrendered to the Holy Light's pure idealistic mysticism. Consequently, Dalaran banned Holy Light churches, tolerating only battle-hardened combat priests when absolutely necessary.
Nobody with functioning brain cells would dare unleash Exorcism against the venerable Archmage Antonidas.
But Duke had commanded it, and Mograine and Abendis led their paladin squadron in a thunderous charge. The mont they entered range, torrents of holy light erupted forth.
Ti crystallized into absolute stillness.
Every Dalaran mage wore expressions of bewildernt so profound they could've been carved from stone.
They couldn't decipher whether this was political assassination or sothing far more sinister.
Antonidas bellowed with righteous fury: "Edmund Duke! Have you lost your mind completely? You're wielding Alliance authority to brutally violate Dalaran's sovereignty, the sacred capital of free magical practice! Do you believe such tyranny will succeed? Retreat imdiately—or I'll announce Dalaran's permanent withdrawal from the Alliance!"
Duke's facial muscles spasd and his clenched fists trembled with barely contained rage.
"Abandon the Alliance!? You lack that authority—Dreadlord Balnazzar!" As the final syllable thundered forth, Duke exploded into action.
Dozens of spectral mage hands materialized from the void, each clutching bottles of concentrated holy water for exorcism. The containers burst open, releasing cascades of golden radiance that plumted toward Antonidas' head.
If he remained the genuine Antonidas, even complete saturation would've produced no effect whatsoever.
But he was not...
Confronted by the deluge of sanctified water, he abandoned all pretense of magic. Instead, his supposedly frail elderly body executed an acrobatic dodge so impossibly graceful that master thieves would've wept with envy.
One spectacular backward leap launched his entire form twenty ters through the air!
Yes! Absolutely correct!
The Dreadlord Balnazzar himself!
This was the sa Balnazzar who, in the original tiline, had exploited the chaos during humanity's desperate attempt to reclaim Strathol, possessed the isolated Saidan Dathrohan, transford the entire Scarlet Crusade into his personal instrunts of destruction, and converted countless fanatical anti-Scourge warriors into unwitting victims of his sches.
Duke's presence had twisted history's threads once again. Balnazzar, originally destined to target Saidan, had instead succeeded in his ambush against the incredibly powerful Antonidas.
Without the system AI's crucial warning, and without Duke witnessing firsthand how Antonidas' identification marker had shifted to hostile crimson and displayed "Undead," he never would have believed that Antonidas was already dead.
Tragically, ti refused to bend backward. To prevent hundreds of thousands of Dalaran citizens from being crushed beneath Balnazzar's malevolent sches, Duke had no choice but to expose the Dreadlord before the entire assembly!
In the next instant, Duke teleported directly before Balnazzar using flash magic, and struck Antonidas' possessed corpse with his staff—enchanted specifically with Exorcism—forcibly ejecting the Dreadlord from his stolen flesh.
What materialized before everyone's horrified eyes was a colossal, malevolent, nightmare-inducing abomination...
User Comments
0 comments from readers