Chapter 594
Chapter 594: The Battle of Dalaran
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Archimonde’s projection quickly left, and Arthas and Kel’Thuzad, who had received orders, led the Scourge toward Dalaran.
Dalaran, located southeast of Lordamere Lake, had always been regarded as the holy land of mages in the world of Azeroth and the paradise for spellcasters. Of course, this was only for humans. The high elves of Silvermoon had always scoffed at this statement.
Perhaps it was because of the fate of the spellcasters, like the elves, Dalaran was also a place dogged by bad luck.
The establishment of Dalaran could be traced back to more than 6,800 years ago. During the War of the Ancients, the Highborne led by Queen Azshara had abused the power of the Well of Eternity and ended up attracting the Burning Legion. Finally, the Well of Eternity had been detonated, blowing up the entire continent into pieces. After this painful lesson, among the surviving night elves, most opposed continuing to use arcane power, but some of the remaining Highborne were still obsessed with researching arcane magic. As a result, the two sides had a huge conflict of ideas.
Finally, the night elves led by Malfurion expelled the Highborne led by Dath’Remar Sunstrider and exiled them to the Eastern Kingdoms on the other side of the Maelstrom.
The Highborne led by Dath’Remar searched for a place to settle down in the Eastern Kingdoms for a long time. Because they had lost their connection to the second Well of Eternity created by Illidan, these Highborne gradually became shorter and shorter, and the purple radiance on their skin began to fade. Finally, they became a new group of elves different from the night elves. In order to distinguish themselves, they called themselves high elves.
Finally, the high elves established a country in the forest north of Lordaeron. After the kingdom was established, Dath’Remar used the well water he stole from the second Well of Eternity to create the third Well of Eternity. In order to draw a line with the night elves, the high elves called this third Well of Eternity the Sunwell.
Why was there the saying that the races of Azeroth were always courting death? The Well of Eternity had already exploded in the War of the Ancients, and as though they wanted to attract the Burning Legion again, they created two more Wells of Eternity one after another.
Although the source of power of these secondary Wells of Eternity was far lower than that of the original Well of Eternity, these magic power nodes would always cause radiation to the universe when triggered frequently. This was undoubtedly like a greeting to the Burning Legion…
After the establishment of the high elven kingdom of Quel’Thalas, they had a war with the Amani trolls. In order to win, the high elves adopted the method of forming an alliance with the humans. They sent a large number of mages to teach humans how to use magic and train spellcasters for them. At this price, the high elves won the war.
And the human mages trained by this batch of high elves were the predecessors of Dalaran. In order to study magic better and more freely, the mages established Dalaran. From the beginning, this city had been the center of magic study and experimentation for Lordaeron and the world.
Since its establishment, Dalaran had been very prosperous. A multi-racial mage association known as the Kirin Tor had ruled this city for centuries. They welcomed and encouraged mages from all over the world to come here to study and use the arcane arts. It could even be said that they were so open-minded that they didn’t mind anything. Even if people were studying forbidden magic such as curses and spiritual magic, they were open to all comers.
Therefore, although this fanatical atmosphere of mages pursuing knowledge and mysteries caused Dalaran to produce many talents, it also buried hidden dangers for the nation.
As more and more mages used magic without restraint, the space around Dalaran became fragile and even began to crack, causing some demons to slip in through these spatial rifts. These cunning demons began to kill and set fires wantonly in Dalaran.
These demons who slipped in were undoubtedly the minions of the Burning Legion. Even though they fought alone, they were far stronger than the mages of Dalaran, and the damage they caused was naturally immense. After the Dalaran mages were horrified to find that they couldn’t do anything to these demons, they could only seek help from their allies, the high elves.
After seeing these demons, the high elves were also very shocked. Unlike the short-lived humans, the long lifespan of the high elves let them remember the scenes of the War of the Ancients deeply. Thus, the high elves sent people to eliminate the demons while telling these ignorant human students about the war that almost destroyed the world in ancient times.
It was also at this time that the mages of Dalaran learned the name of the Burning Legion, and they carefully recorded it in books.
However, the mages’ inherent self-confidence, even arrogance, made them feel that there was nothing that magic couldn’t solve! After this matter temporarily came to an end, they quickly forgot their fear.
The only lesson that humans learned from history was that humans couldn’t learn any lessons. Oh how true this was. Mages were all like this. Be it humans or elves, they couldn’t study magic and the arcane arts freely, making the mages feel uncomfortable all over. So not long after, not even two hundred years later, not only did the mages of Dalaran start magic research again, but the high elves were also clamoring to revive the arcane arts.
Of course, in view of the fact that researching magic would still make space fragile and cause demons to sneak in, the mages of Dalaran thought of a way: use the power of the arcane arts to create an extraordinary existence close to the power of gods and let him hunt and kill those damn demons that affected their arcane research!
This was the origin of the Guardians of Azeroth. They first chose the dozen greatest mages in Azeroth to form the Council of Tirisfal. Then this council used arcane magic to infuse incomparably powerful power into the body of the person they chose to create an artificial demigod known as the Guardian.
With this incomparably powerful power, the Guardian could single-handedly resist the minions of the Burning Legion that slipped through the rifts in space. Due to the extreme power of the Guardian, only the Council of Tirisfal had the authority to select the person with the potential to inherit the mantle of the Guardian. No matter when, when a Guardian was too old or tired of this secret war against evil, the council would choose a new powerhouse and officially infuse the power of the Guardian into this new agent to ensure that nothing went wrong.
Under the protection of the Guardians, Dalaran spent more than two thousand years in peace. But there would be a problem one day when operating a puppet like this.
An artificial demigod, Aegwynn, appeared. Just as the Council of Tirisfal was calculating how to regain her power when she was about to die, she used the god-like energy in her body to extend her lifespan for more than eight hundred years and even chose her own successor… her son, Medivh!
The Council of Tirisfal completely lost control of the Guardians. In view of this situation, they no longer dared to create any more Guardians, so Medivh naturally became the last Guardian.
However, when Medivh’s mother, Aegwynn, was pregnant, she had encountered a clone of Sargeras on the way to eliminate demons. Although she defeated the clone, it caused Sargeras’s soul to attach to the child in her stomach. When Medivh grew up, he was gradually controlled by Sargeras’s soul. Finally, together with the orc Gul’dan, they opened the Dark Portal and attracted the invasion of the orcs of Draenor.
Dalaran paid an immense price for this. In the Second War, the Blackrock orcs had driven dragons to fight against the powerful Dalaran mages. Dalaran was slaughtered and shattered into many small islands. The violet city was destroyed, and Dalaran welcomed its first destruction.
After the war, the surviving mages joined forces and attempted to rebuild Dalaran. But unexpectedly, the artifact they created to rebuild the violet city caught Ner’zhul’s eye, and Ner’zhul needed it to reopen the Dark Portal.
In order to seize the Eye of Dalaran, the death knight Teron Gorefiend led his subordinates to destroy the city that was still under reconstruction, and the kingdom of Dalaran perished again.
Afterward, under the leadership of Archmage Antonidas, Dalaran was rebuilt again. This time, they chose a location southeast of Lordamere Lake. Since the orcs had been completely defeated, the reconstruction went smoothly, and Dalaran welcomed more than ten years of peace.
And thus was the tragic part. Just as Antonidas was about to lead Dalaran to glory again, Arthas came, and he came with the massive Scourge Army…
After standing outside the city gates of Dalaran and exchanging verbal blows with Antonidas, Arthas waved Frostmourne and commanded the undead of the Scourge to charge toward Dalaran like a tide.
Dalaran hadn’t been rebuilt for long, so there was no regular army to guard it at all. The mages could only rely on their powerful violet barrier, which could cause effective damage to the undead monsters.
However, maintaining this barrier that covered the entire city required an immense amount of magic power. Although Kel’Thuzad was a lich now, he had been a member of the Kirin Tor when he was alive, so he knew very well what weaknesses this barrier had.
Under Kel’Thuzad’s guidance, Arthas snuck into Dalaran through the tunnels, found the few powerful mages maintaining the energy nodes of the barrier, and killed them. Without the magic power infusion of the mages, the violet barrier could no longer be maintained.
As soon as the barrier collapsed, Dalaran’s fate was conceivable. Countless mages died in battle. Even though they had used magic to eliminate many undead when they were alive, in the face of the despairing numbers of the Scourge, their deaths were only a drop in the bucket.
Antonidas also died. Arthas had personally killed another acquaintance and elder.
Yes, Antonidas and Arthas knew each other because Antonidas was Jaina’s mentor. When Jaina was studying magic in Dalaran, Arthas naturally got to know Antonidas.
One by one, Arthas killed his acquaintances, friends, and relatives. This was equivalent to saying goodbye to his past self…
Dalaran had been broken through, but the remaining mages began to gather, wanting to gather all their strength to detonate the final spell. This power aroused Arthas’s vigilance, and he didn’t want the Scourge Army that he had painstakingly accumulated to die here. Therefore, after killing Antonidas and obtaining the Book of Medivh, he temporarily withdrew from Dalaran with Kel’Thuzad and the Scourge.
Seeing the Scourge withdraw, the mages of Dalaran heaved a sigh of relief, thinking that the disaster had passed.
But what they didn’t know was that although the Scourge had left, their destiny of destruction had not ended because of this. A threat more serious than the Scourge was about to arrive…