Duke, ever the connoisseur of existential dread, slowly craned his neck skyward. In this deranged chess dimension, notions like "time" and "space" had apparently packed their bags and eloped with a pair of murlocs. The battlefield wasn't just strewn with swords and sabers; it was a veritable salad of sharpened steel and splintered wood, a testament to countless, utterly pointless skirmishes. Beyond this metallic carnage, the horizon stretched into an infinite, mind-numbingly monotonous black and white checkerboard, while the sky above? A void so utterly, profoundly blank, it made a freshly wiped slate look like a vibrant tapestry.
The only thing left to cling to, the singular beacon in this desolate, monochromatic hellscape, was the opponent.
And over there, amidst a whirlwind of dust, grunts, and what sounded suspiciously like a dying badger, the legendary Lothar was locked in a dance of desperate survival with the utterly unsubtle Warchief Blackhand.
This wasn't just "not an easy task"; it was a full-blown, category-five nightmare. The Horde, bless their brutish, green hearts, had a combat power that could only be described as "aggressively abundant." Orcs, it seemed, could outlast other orcs, outlast rocks, possibly even outlast the concept of time itself. Humans, on the other hand, had a rather inconvenient habit of not being immortal. The moment those delightfully squishy murlocs and surprisingly toothy gnolls on the flanks decided to take a permanent nap, it was game over, man. Game. Over.
Anduin, with the tactical finesse of a charging rhinoceros, had to attack. Forcefully.
This, naturally, was the equivalent of ringing the dinner bell for an orc chieftain who considered "head-on collision" a nuanced strategy. Blackhand's hammer, a monstrosity of iron and bad intentions, wasn't just heavy; it was a gravitational anomaly. It wasn't just fast; it was a blur that defied the very laws of physics.
Under Blackhand's arm strength – a phenomenon so utterly divorced from human physiology it bordered on the supernatural – each swing generated a violent wind pressure. This wasn't just a breeze; it was the concentrated essence of a mountain range deciding to spontaneously collapse, leaving Lothar gasping like a fish at a high-altitude yoga retreat.
And then, the truly unfair part: Blackhand's movements were so ludicrously rapid that each hammer swing seemed to multiply, creating a dazzling, multi-pronged illusion of impending doom. Lothar, caught off guard by this optical trickery, was forced into a desperate, clangorous collision of hammer (Blackhand's) and sword (Lothar's), a move that nearly resulted in his instantaneous, rather undignified demise.
His long sword, a weapon designed for elegant, precise slicing, was, in the grand scheme of things, a rather dainty toothpick compared to Blackhand's blunt force trauma delivery system. It simply wasn't built for a head-on argument with a small moon.
Especially not when Blackhand's hammer was a bespoke, custom-forged instrument of pain, weighing in at a casual 300 kilograms. That's roughly the weight of a small car, or a very, very angry cow.
Almost the instant of impact, Lothar's internal monologue devolved into a string of colorful expletives. "Why, oh why," he mentally screamed, "did I think it was a good idea to arm-wrestle a monster whose strength makes legendary giants look like particularly feeble kittens?!"
Because that single, bone-jarring impact had very nearly snapped his King's Sword like a twig.
Now, let's be clear: while the King's Sword in Lothar's hand might look like a light weapon, a mere whisper of steel, it was anything but. After inheriting the very stubborn will of Emperor Thoradin and being supercharged with the collective, fiery desire for freedom and not-dying of countless ancestors, this blade had transcended mere "epic" status. It was practically a semi-artifact, a weapon that had clearly skipped the "humble beginnings" phase of its existence.
Don't let its thin, slender appearance fool you into thinking it would shatter against Blackhand's hammer. Its hardness? Its toughness? Lothar distinctly recalled, with a nostalgic shudder, using the Sword of Kings as a rather effective marble-cutter during his mischievous childhood. It had carved through solid stone like butter.
Yet, even this semi-artifact, this monument to ancestral stubbornness, when clashing with Blackhand's hammer, emitted a low, guttural groan. A sound that resonated deep within Lothar's very soul, a mournful lament that spoke volumes about the sheer, unholy force it had just endured.
It wasn't quite the soul-shattering shriek of a banshee, but it was enough. Enough to make Lothar abruptly abandon any romantic notions of a swift, decisive victory. "Right," he thought, "Plan B: Don't die. And maybe, just maybe, annoy him into submission."
Lothar's gaze flickered, a quick, anxious dart towards Garona.
The fierce female orc, a whirlwind of blades and bad intentions, was currently engaged in what could only be described as a one-sided beatdown of Blackhand's lieutenant, Orgrim. From the looks of it, Garona had not just the upper hand, she had the entire armory.
Garona's figure was a blur, a phantom of motion. The cold glint of her dagger, a silver streak of death, wove a mesmerizing, terrifying pattern, leaving behind a series of finger-deep, absolutely ghastly scars on every patch of Orgrim's exposed, surprisingly resilient flesh.
If Orgrim were a human, even if his vital organs remained stubbornly intact, he'd be gushing like a broken fire hydrant, bleeding out faster than a politician's promise. But alas, the vitality of orcs could not be measured by mere human standards. Plus, this particular Orgrim was clearly not a genuine, flesh-and-blood orc, but some sort of magical, pain-tolerant facsimile.
Orgrim's ferocity, to Lothar's mild annoyance, remained utterly undiminished. The brute just kept swinging, seemingly fueled by pure, unadulterated stupidity.
No, Lothar's true concern lay with Garona herself.
Rogues, bless their sneaky hearts, had a natural, inherent disadvantage against warriors. Their offensive might look like a dazzling, lethal ballet, but if a warrior managed to land even one solid counter-attack, the rogue was usually toast. Warriors were thick-skinned, walking tanks, blessed with enough hit points to make a thousand mistakes. Rogues, on the other hand, had a margin for error roughly equivalent to walking a tightrope over a pit of hungry piranhas. One slip, and it was game over, permanently.
But of course, the grand champion of Lothar's anxiety parade was none other than Duke.
Duke gave Lothar a feeling so utterly bizarre it made his teeth ache. His aura screamed "Master Rank," yet his presence felt like a Archamage had accidentally wandered into the wrong dimension. "Well," Lothar mused, "let's just assume Duke is like his master, a master of the 'hide your power level' technique." But then there was Gul'dan. The phantom of Gul'dan. The feeling he radiated made Lothar suspect that Gul'dan's real strength was not just catching up to Medivh, but possibly lapping him in a magical marathon!
Even if this particular Gul'dan was a mere echo, a spectral shadow of his true, terrifying self, his power was still enough to make lesser mortals spontaneously combust.
And Duke? Duke had to face an opponent who was, at the very least, a "master wizard" level threat. A master wizard! With a capital M and a capital W!
How long could Duke possibly last against that?
Lothar couldn't help but feel a little anxious. A lot anxious, actually. His stomach was doing interpretive dance.
Duke, meanwhile, was in trouble. Deep, deep, deep trouble. The kind of trouble that made "being eaten by a grue" seem like a pleasant afternoon picnic.
This Gul'dan? Incredibly, annoyingly, absurdly powerful!
The system AI, a constant, nagging voice in Duke's digital ear, had been flashing a veritable disco of warnings across his retina. Duke, finally at his wit's end, had snapped. "Look, I'm currently challenging Gul'dan's mirror image to a magical duel to the death," he'd snarled internally at the AI. "Could you please stop sending me pop-up notifications about my low mana, you digital busybody?!"
This, surprisingly, had made the system AI go quiet for a blissful, if brief, moment.
Duke knew, with the cold, hard certainty of a man staring down a magical freight train, that low-level magic was utterly, hopelessly doomed to be unable to even tickle higher-level, mysterious power. He'd known it from the moment he'd stepped into this absurd chess-scape. Without his newly forged, utterly revolutionary Capacitor, Duke wouldn't just be unable to compete with this Gul'dan mirror image; he'd be instantly vaporized into a fine, magical mist. That kind of crushing, overwhelming magical power could effortlessly swat away any offensive or defensive spell Duke dared to conjure.
But with Capacitors? Oh, everything was gloriously, hilariously different.
No matter how the chess level in Karazhan twisted and contorted reality, at its core, it was still a boss fight. A game boss.
If the real world had such a thing as "item levels," then the Capacitor's level was probably identical to, or even slightly higher than, the difficulty rating of a Karazhan chess encounter.
This, Duke realized with a triumphant cackle, created a glorious, beautiful bug. A loophole in the fabric of magical reality that allowed him, a mere Earth Rank wizard, to actually hurt a Gul'dan in a chess dimension. It was like bringing a bazooka to a knife fight, if the bazooka was actually a highly specialized, reality-bending paperclip.
And so, the air was once again filled with the same gorgeous, blinding, utterly relentless arcane missile barrage.
The "whoosh whoosh whoosh" sound of arcane missiles, like a thousand angry, glowing bees, had been drilling into everyone's eardrums since the very beginning of the fight. The arcane missiles themselves, the ones that Gul'dan's wizard shield effortlessly absorbed, were utterly beside the point. They were just the opening act.
The true star of the show was the lightning effect. The lightning effect triggered after an Arcane Missile critical hit.
Capacitor. This unassuming accessory, which apparently had no concept of "cooldown" or "trigger frequency limits," was, for Duke at this very moment, nothing short of a true, honest-to-goodness artifact. A magical anomaly. A cheat code in physical form.
Others could only hear the constant, furious "CRACKLE! ZAP! POP!" of electricity.
At first, it was just one of the wizard's hands around Duke that seemed to be having an unfortunate electrical malfunction. Then, the frequency of the lightning became so utterly insane that everyone present witnessed the entire space around Duke's body erupt into a dazzling, blinding, utterly chaotic storm of electric light.
Countless lightning bolts, like angry, sentient snakes of pure energy, shot out from Duke's vicinity, pouring down upon Gul'dan. The twisting electric serpents roared with a ferocious, almost personal vendetta, wantonly sweeping across the pristine floor tiles, leaving behind horrifying, burnt-black electric scars even on the supposedly unblemished white squares. It was like a very aggressive, very destructive light show.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" Gul'dan roared, his voice a guttural shriek of pure, unadulterated rage and disbelief. He continuously unleashed torrents of destructive flames, each one superior to Duke's paltry offerings in both raw quality and sheer quantity. Yet, every single flame, every single inferno, was met mid-air by a veritable swarm of countless lightning arrows, each one crushing the fiery assault into pathetic, fizzling embers.
Gul'dan's mirror image, a simulacrum of the original, was utterly, completely, existentially bewildered. Why was this happening?
Why could a low-level wizard, a mere practitioner of weak, pathetic arcane missiles, unleash such an overwhelming, continuous barrage of lightning attacks? Attacks that were, against all logic and magical theory, actually hurting him, even in his greatly reduced, phantom state?
He began to doubt everything. His power. His existence. His life choices.
Was his opponent truly this insignificant human? Or was it that utterly ridiculous, mindless accessory strapped to the human's waist? How could this brain-dead, logic-defying trinket, this "Capacitor" that put the cart before the horse, actually pose a threat to him?
If this Gul'dan had possessed true self-awareness, he wouldn't just go crazy. He'd probably spontaneously combust from the sheer, illogical indignity of it all.