' = Internal dialogue
ยจ= Normal speech
* = Sounds / Etc
-Chapter 48 Start-
The woman in front of us kept watching us, waiting for our response. I looked toward Aegwynn, who shrugged. Jaina and Thorim locked their gaze at her, expecting her to lash out and attack.
But she only reached into his pocket and slowly pulled out something that looked like a pale blue key and twirled it around his palm while gazing at us lazily as if getting bored.
"If you four think I believe myself superior in terms of magical ability versus you all, then you are mistaken. I have my countermeasures if you feel it is a good idea to engage, you know." She said with an obnoxious grin and then stopped twirling the key between her fingers and gazed directly at me.
"But you... You are a blank. We have received reports about you specifically. No matter which future or past we seek you in, you simply..."
*Poof*
White smoke rose from her palm.
"Have vanished. My liege asked me to be lenient if you were to... Look the other way." She said politely and smirked as she sat herself down in a chair of white dust that rose from the ground.
"However, that does not seem likely, as you have allied yourself with the bronze. It's funny how incompetent the bronze becomes without the literal brain of operations, don't you think? No, don't answer that. My liege would likely take some kind of offense, heh." The pale woman chuckled for a moment until she looked toward Aegwynn.
"The longest serving Guardian of Tirisfal, in the flesh, consider me honored to be in your presence." She rose to her feet and exaggeratedly bowed, then turned towards Jaina, "Oh, so here we have the Daughter of the Sea, Princess of Kul'Tiras. This must be a rare occasion, I have never seen a version of you not attack when an enemy is in front of you. Consider me impressed." Then, she gave Jaina an exaggerated bow before looking at Thorim and chuckled.
"In many timelines, people would flock toward you and call you mighty just for shits and giggles; however, in your current state, you seem ready to fall apart like a block of ancient clay." Then she turned back to me with a shit-eating grin, "If you think you four are ready for whatever awaits you, go ahead. However, since I cannot stop you, please activate the so-called Iris in front of you by all means."
Then she stepped back from where she first appeared, turned around one last time, and said, "Toodeloo." And disappeared in gray smoke as her body turned to mist.
The key slowly levitated toward me and landed in my palm, and all signs of the woman being there disappeared.
"... Well, that certainly were interesting..." I said, pretty speechless about the so-called Infinite dragon Eternus.
"Certainly, she seemed pretty sure that whatever happens next is in their favor, but we only have one real choice," Aegwynn said calmly. At the same time, we all looked toward the Iris on the floor before us.
"And I doubt that is the real Focusing Iris. It feels like a magically charged translocation spell imbued into an item, meaning it will send us to wherever it's keyed into on the opposite side." Aegwynn said calmly while studying the blue orb.
We stood there momentarily and gazed at the fake Iris until I stepped forward and shrugged, then said, "Won't get anywhere by pondering what is waiting on the other side, I suppose."
"I agree with your assumption, tiny one," Thorim stated with a firm voice as he walked toward the middle of the room. Jaina and Aegwynn stepped in behind as we all stepped before it. I put my hand on the blue orb as it lit up, and a bubble of blue magic surrounded us for a little while before everything went dark.
The next thing I knew, roaring and screeching bombarded my hearing. I opened my eyes, and before I got to see where we were, I was assaulted by the massive amount of magic bombarding my senses.
Something felt off that moment, and I realized what: my magic seemed harder to use, as if the space itself fought against me.
Now, I noticed that we were on a vast circular platform. In the middle was a gigantic blue core levitating above a hole in the ground while radiating pure, unadulterated magic. It was as if staring into a miniature blue sun.
{The platforms are around 600m(1968.50 ft) in a wide circle with a hole in the middle}
The platform we stood on was entirely made of some kind of metal.
I could feel the vibration of magic coursing through as it vibrated slightly from the center, where the blue-looking sun levitated slightly above the floor.
This was not the only platform inside this space. As I gazed upward through the hole in its center, I could barely see that there were two more above, yet the one we stood on was the only one I could see, having the blue orb in its center.
*ROOOOOOOOAR*
I realized I had momentarily gotten distracted as blue fire bombarded us.
A thin purple shield covered our group as Aegwynn summoned her staff. Aluneth and her empowered barrier defended us from the potent blue fires that seemed to slowly erode Aegwynn's arcane barrier.
She clapped her hands together as an explosion of arcane magic exploded outwards and dissipated the flames. That's when I saw it, one of the things I hoped not to see when we arrived in this hellscape of a world.
A blue dragon with half its body eroded, showing a clear white skeleton below. The other half of its body seemed perfectly fine if it weren't for the lifeless white and blue glow from underneath its skin.
The skull looked our way eerily. As the initial surprise attack failed, it returned to where three other figures stood.
My jaw dropped slightly when I looked at the three figures watching us. One was the humanoid form of Alexstrasza, her skin pale. Her previously red eyes had turned into emotionless blue, and signs of a deadly battle taking place all across her body. Her armor was torn, her left horn ripped off at the base of the skull, and several large holes in her torso showed that she had been impaled repeatedly as blood had stained her tattered armor.
On her left stood a tall, skeletal creature floating above the ground with chains hovering around its torso.
The Infinite Dragonflight had somehow managed to get this version of Kel'thuzad on their side.
His skeletal frame stood there calmly as he studied us with a calculating gaze.
And on the opposite side stood an elderly black-haired man with horns protruding from his skull. His eyes were void of all emotion, and his eyes did not even land on us as he stood there like a puppet. The assumption that he was indeed a puppet was because he had a fist-sized hole through his chest that seemed to refuse to heal as the skin wriggled around underneath.
This man was obviously a dragon in his visage form, the same as Alextrasza, who was standing between him and Kel'thuzad.
Just as the blue and half-skeletal dragon landed beside Kel'thuzad, I could hear an elderly voice above us.
"I see... The gray ones warned me of flies that would brazenly storm into my domain. Even so, I am pleased to see the ones stealing magic come to give it back..."
A light-blue-haired elf with an elderly face with many blue extrusions starting at his forehead and going to the back of his skull looked down at us with the most condescending eyes I have ever seen. Still, there was some insanity hidden in his dark yellow eyes as he spoke.
So comes the protagonist, Malygos the mad, Magic Incarnate, and the current blue aspect.
I couldn't help but gaze at his necklace in his visage form. It looked like an urn with skulls and a lid covered with blood-red gemstones.
'No way is that a phylactery!?' I thought and saw the ghastly image of a tiny paw trying to wrestle the lid open but failed as it was dragged back inside violently.
The image of how the Infinite Dragonflight made this scenario became more and more clear. Somehow, they had managed to kill Alexstrasza, the black-haired man, and the half-reanimated version of who I could only assume were Kalecgos and brought them all through necromancy.
And somehow managed to get Kel'thuzad's phylactery by some means. This was honestly not what I had been expecting.
Then Malygos's image disappeared as it faded out of existence, almost like a mirage.
After a momentary silence, Kel'thuzad pointed his bony arm in our direction. Alexstrasza and the black-haired man suddenly started to morph into their original forms.
At the same time, I could see the platform above us light up slightly as the core in the middle of the platform hummed, and a beam of pure azure blue radiated through all of the platforms above.
Suddenly, Aegwynn said clearly, "Dear, we can deal with these four. Undead constructs are far weaker than their alive counterparts, especially the female one over there, as it seems her very nature conflicts with what she has become..." The last part came out as a whisper as she studied the dragons that slowly changed from humanoid to dragon.
Alexztrasza seemed to have an issue transforming into her dragon form as her skin twisted around. Bones could be heard crunching and breaking apart as she kept up the transformation. Her skin desperately tried to obey the Lich; the black-haired man, however, transformed within seconds while the previous red aspect struggled.
This clearly showed that something had gone wrong with Kel'thuzad's reanimations.
After considering what to do, I realized Aegwynn was right. She should be enough to handle whatever was thrown her way against these opponents.
I nodded and shot off upward. I had to enter through the middle where the beam of blue went through the platform, so the moment I started getting toward the next platform, which was a hundred meters above, I was met with a pillar of ice coming from the ceiling above as it attempted to impale me.
A thin barrier surrounded me as I basically ignored the ice and continued to ascend, but then came an insane amount of blue fire right behind me, which was blocked by a barrier of water as it layered itself around me.
Aegwynn had blocked the ice, and Jaina had stopped the fire as I made my way through to the next floor, and I felt all attacks coming my way stop as I continued to ascend upwards.
When I came through the second floor, I saw the top platform far away, much further away than the second one, compared to where we first appeared.
A few minutes of rapid flight later, I neared the platform far into the... Sky? Space? This reminded me of the Eye of Eternity when I considered this a game.
The area all around the enormous platform was covered in blue runes, and outside of them, I could see the stars in the dark beyond.
As I stepped on the platform, I felt magic wash over me as a layer of runes lit up in a circle on the outer layer of the floor.
A thin blue membrane encased the entire surface. Then I caught sight of Malygos, who stood on the edge and seemed to be casting something as his hands lit up for a moment before the light dulled.
The platform seemed to start rotating slowly, yet I felt no indication of it moving in the slightest.
That's when I realized it wasn't the platform he and I shared but the space around us that now moving around the platforms.
In the dark space above us, I saw the azure blue intensify as Malygos cackled as he spoke, "This is my first step toward reclaiming the stolen magic you mortals keep using for your puny wars. You all are simply a festering wound in our world. As a result, you lesser beings have brought all matters of conflict through the use of the magic given by our planet's lifeblood. In other words, you are a cancer that needs to die for our world to thrive!"
With a mad glint in his eyes, I saw Malygos start channeling something between his hands as a dozen blue portals appeared behind him.
Intense sparks of lightning hovered toward Malygos as he laughed. When it struck him, I saw his eyes radiate with pure power.
"I am without limits here... the rules of your cherished reality do not apply... in this realm, I am in control... However! I give you one chance. Pledge fealty to me, and perhaps I won't slaughter you for your insolence!" he snarled and stated angrily.
Malygos waited patiently for my response as he kept summoning portals behind him.
I just shook my head, refusing to humor the mad dragon with a response. All of this was basically him trying to avoid a fight he thought he was sure to win. After being assisted by the Infinite Dragonflight, there was no doubt how this would turn out, or at least that was what he thought.
Then he suddenly swelled with magic as the third spark hit his back. An intense hum could be heard as the edges of the platform lit up in dark blue runes. I felt slightly lifted above the ground before I forcibly planted myself on the platform.
A giant vortex appeared, and I felt it attempting to tear me off the ground. Malygos kept his mad smile as he channeled the spell, but enough was enough. I imbued myself with lightning and dashed toward the mad dragon.
Deciding that his vortex wasn't working, he stopped the spell and charged another. Just as I was going to punch him right in the face, I felt myself being propelled backward as a wave of intense arcane magic struck me.
The explosion of arcane magic did not send me as far back as the Aspect of Magic hoped; however, as I soon dashed toward him again with a lightning-covered arm, I struck Malygos directly in the chest. Still, he seemed prepared, as a purple barrier covered him at the last moment, negating most of the impact.
He was still sent skidding backward, though, his mad grin slowly becoming an angered one. As he quickly spread his hands and channeled his magic into the sky above, twenty or so mages flew through the portals with discs underneath them, acting as a platform for them to stand on.
"What could you hope to accomplish? To storm brazenly into my domain... to employ magic... against ME? I will teach you just how little you know of the very magic you mortals utilize..."
The mages that swarmed all around me pointed their staves toward Malygos as he brimmed with power. Before they could continue, I threw a highly potent ball of lightning that struck one of them and quickly spread as a spider's web toward the others. Half of them had died by the time a barrier blocked the rest of my attack.
Malygos now looked furious as he quickly morphed into his dragon form, and his magic boomed. He was still affected by the sparks and whatever the mages channeled into him.
The only sound I heard was a dull *Thud*, then I felt everything around me spin as I was somehow sent away like a ragdoll into the rune-filled boundary surrounding the platform.
Then a resounding a *BOOOOOOOOM*, went through the entire platform I hit the invisible wall as I heard the space behind me crack before it repaired itself.
I did damage control as soon as possible, realizing I now had a large missing piece of flesh on my left side. The armor around the rib had seemingly evaporated as a hole had been melted directly through it.
I quickly froze the area of flesh that had been scorched right through, and with a sigh of relief after feeling the pain stop throbbing, I looked back at Malygos, who now had started casting something again.
This time, I made a wall of ice appear out of nowhere as I reached into my bag, pulled out two heavy gauntlets, and equipped them almost instantly.
These gauntlets had a dull gray color, which resulted from trying to mix arcanite and thorium with several minor ones. The result was that they looked very basic and boring. Still, the inside had a conductive metal, which, in turn, enhanced lightning and its discharge.
Just as I had equipped them, I felt the wall of purple ice break apart as a beam of blue almost struck me in the face at the last moment before I could warp myself slightly away to avoid it.
As I decided to go on the offensive again, I imbued myself with lightning and warped toward the closest mage, who was channeling a spell on Malygos.
*SPLAT* *ZZZAP*
The mage's head popped open like a watermelon, the lightning I struck him with flew rapidly toward the next target like a heat-seeking line of electric death. The mage who had lost his head fell to his knees as the small disc under him kept him in the air shortly before it crashed into the platform below.
A moment later, a yell of agony was heard before a similar crash occurred.
I warped myself before Malygos as he yelled something toward the mages behind him.
Then I tried to freeze his left wing with a waving motion, but something negated the spell. That's when I saw several other mages channeling magic in my direction, and then I felt it.
I was being bombarded with counterspells in an attempt to cut off my any use of magic immediately after seeing their companions get either decapitated or deep-fried.
So I avoided Malygos for the time being as I dashed to his side, effectively hiding from the counterspell, and then proceeded to blast the area around me with fire before they could counterspell me again in an attempt to keep up the line of sight.
Just as I had done precisely that, they dashed around Malygos with the intent to keep up the spell nullification. I threw a bolt of potent lightning toward them. It looked like a jagged javelin as it tore through the mages clustered together on the mobile platform they stood on.
As I turned back toward the mad aspect, I saw a barrage of purple heading my way, empowered to an insane degree as the space around it looked like it was glitching. Just as I was going to warp away from the danger, I felt myself freeze, and a moment before it would impact me, I saw a smile on Malygos's draconic face.
[Will to Survive] Broke me out of whatever Malygos did as I forced myself to move again. Without hesitation, I warp toward the grinning aspect through the twenty-meter-tall wave of empowered arcane magic and punch as hard as I can from under his chin while being empowered by lightning.
*BOOOOM* *CrrACK*
The blue aspect's head whipped backward as I could hear bones break. The mages behind him grew frantic with fear from watching Malygos actually take damage.
*ROOOOAR* "YOU DARE!? Malygos shouted with fury and indignation.
That's when I realized my new passive [Breaker of Fate] was utterly broken, as the damage increase was no joke. Considering I had yet to use anything substantial in my fight against him.
Malygos's jaw hung off his skull while frantic mages kept hovering around him in an attempt to heal it, but that was not the end of it.
One of his sharp teeth had penetrated through his maw and shattered into pieces that struck the left eye from underneath. All I saw in his ruined eye was that it was rapidly filling itself with crimson-colored blood.
As he visibly calmed down and his jaw corrected itself slowly, I felt the air hum as the entire platform and a few of the mages suddenly started glowing blue. The mages were unaware of being targets of Malygos's magic until the last moment.
With panic in their eyes, they fell to their knees and begged the aspect to spare them.
*BOOOOOOM* *BOOOOOM* *BOOOOOM*
And three mages blew up in a violent explosion, spraying the air with intestines and gore. The blast killed everyone who had entered through the portals from earlier. At the same time, Malygos snorted in contempt as he healed up entirely within a few seconds after the magically charged explosion went off.
A blue sheen covered Malygos's body as he swelled with power again. Hundreds of portals now opened up slowly above the platform, and I heard roars and screeches on the other side as drakes wrestled with each other in order to enter through the portal first.
Malygos slowly turned to me once more as he finished his portal summoning and calmly said, "Few have experienced the pain I will now inflict upon you. I am without limits here... the rules of your cherished reality do not apply... in this realm, I am in control..."
Hundreds of shrieks containing murderous glee over the fact prey was not out of reach struck my eardrums. Malygos now started channeling something again while being covered by hundreds of feral drakes rapidly flying my way.
As a purple flame burned the platform underneath me, I started channeling my magic around me. With a shout, as I spread my arms outward, a gigantic wave of flame rose from the ground. Like a tidal wave, it started making its way toward Malygos and the drakes from their side of the platform.
As it struck several drakes, they exploded in an inferno, feeding the already mighty wave of purple fire as it grew larger and larger.
As the sound of sizzling flesh and death wails from the almost mindless drakes who frantically tried to escape the wave bombarded the air, I saw Malygos's shape disappear as I gazed through the flames.
He suddenly appeared far above while his maw filled with sharp blue light as something like a laser of pure magic blasted through the air directly at me.
Just as I was going to warp out of the way again, I felt my vision shift as I stumbled to my knees. I saw a dark gray tendril of magic make its way out of my chest. I had been impaled by something sharp through the back.
'Huh...?' That was all I got time to think before the attack Malygos had fired at me struck.
A fiery pain struck my entire body as the enormous laser of concentrated magic struck. The platform around me lit up in blue flames as I felt a scorching heat through my whole body. The entire area shook as I saw the runes and metals on the surface of the floor melt under the assault of the attack.
My gauntlets melted off my arms before I finally registered what was going on. Something had stabbed me directly through the heart, which interrupted what I had prepared, a perfect ambush, somehow avoiding my senses altogether, which was utter bullshit.
Without any time to lose, I encased the area the ambush had damaged. Half my heart had been skewered apart by a razor-sharp attack. As I froze the internal part of my body, I felt my skin melting off when my left eye started losing sight. The pain was indescribable, as I could feel everything around me heat up to the point I could smell my cooked flesh.
I roared in pain as I encased myself with as much purple ice as I could muster in my current condition; slowly, the fires started sizzling out as Malygos's mocking laughter sounded out from above.
As the seconds passed very slowly, I felt the ice around me melt while the blue fire started going out.
I slumped to one knee as the ice disappeared, gasping for air while my internal injury was trying to heal itself with my ice inside.
A familiar voice sounded out from beside Malygos; as I looked up, there was now a gunmetal gray dragon half the size of Malygos hovering about, its right-wing bloodied at the tip. "I told you that was overkill. The mortal is already on death's door."
"Eternus, If you do not shut your mouth, I will put you down," Malygos replied as he studied me intently.
"What? Do you expect a mere mortal to survive a Surge of Power from you when you are being charged with the Iris? While also being impaled through the heart with my wingspike coated with the blood of an old one? Don't be unreasonable, you old fossil!" Eternus spoke with disdain.
Just as Eternus finished shouting, I felt the injury for what it was.
I was shocked when It refused to properly heal as black veins spread around the wound like it wanted to corrupt and convert.
I healed the physical injury by repairing my heart, but somehow, the heartbeat refused to go back to what it used to and instead slowed down.
'I'm... dying?' I thought, speechless. Had I really underestimated my situation so badly that I had gotten myself killed?
*THUMP*.. *THUMP*... *THUmp*... *THump*...*Thump*-
As my heartbeat slowed to a halt, I felt my entire body become colder and colder. Then, a warm sensation briefly spread across my body, starting from my right arm.
The warm feeling spread across my entire body and disappeared as quick as it came as my vision turned dark. Then, a sea of stars appeared before me, and I felt weightless.
Which it turned out I indeed was. As I gazed down, I saw... Azeroth far, far down, and behind it was a universe-sized figure with her hands around the entire planet, almost as if hugging it, but not entirely.
Her hands never touched the surface, but as she stood there with her ethereal body, her hair white with purple skin, she wore a star-riddled dress from her waist down, a green and blue gemstone as some sort of belt, and golden armor covering the most exposed parts, she had ethereal antler-like horns protruding from her skull with a yellow moon figurine above her forehead between the antlers.
I felt the space shift as I was placed in front of her. Turns out the planet wasn't large, and neither was she, as I was standing in front of her and a miniature world.
Gentle yellow eyes slowly opened to look directly at me, and her face slowly turned into a motherly smile as a warm whisper could be heard all around. 'Finally... I can...see you...my...protector...'
I was stunned, speechless. Perhaps due to my heart stopping, but I was leaning toward the beautiful woman before me being the cause.
-Chapter 48-