Sargeras was riding high.
Not just "feeling good" high—no, this was the kind of triumphant glee only an ancient cosmic supervillain could feel after centuries of plotting finally started to pay off. He wasn't just winning. He was curb-stomping existence itself.
His infernal masterplan? Oh, it wasn't about to succeed. It had succeeded.
Azeroth? Toast on a timer.
The mightiest defender of this world, the "noble" Medivh? Hah! That precious celestial wizard was nothing more than a walking meat puppet now—his strings firmly in Sargeras' flaming, clawed hands.
The bothersome Council of Tirisfal? Reduced to little more than a historical footnote scribbled in blood and ash.
Aegwynn, that arrogant "heroine" who thought she'd buried him long ago? She'd cried—actually cried—before him. He drank her despair like a fine vintage.
And the rest of Azeroth's "champions"? What a joke.
Dragons? Please. He had a plan for those scaly, overgrown torch-lizards. An elegant one. A spicy one. One involving their pride, their magic, and a spectacular fall from grace.
The Night Elves? Pfft. Bunch of moss-huffing immortals who wouldn't twitch unless their beloved trees got chopped in front of them. Slow-reacting, slow-talking, and utterly out of date.
Humans were the best. Not the brightest, but definitely the most entertaining.
Sargeras had long abandoned brute force for something far more delicious: using the war-mongering orcs, juiced up on fel magic and bloodlust, to do his dirty work. Like slicing flesh with a blunt knife—messy, inefficient, and exquisitely painful.
And when he watched the demon-corrupted orcs slaughtering their way through Azeroth—men, women, children, elderly, babes in arms, whether they fought back or sobbed in terror—Sargeras felt alive. Or as alive as a god-sized soul-eating cosmic demon could feel.
That rush of fire and suffering? It didn't just warm his blackened soul—it ignited it.
This was it. His moment. He could sit back in Karazhan like a smug theater critic, swirling a metaphysical glass of burning agony, and watch the world burn with the detached amusement of a connoisseur.
A voice from a speck. A mortal. An ant.
"As long as we kill you, we can close the Dark Portal!"
Sargeras blinked—figuratively, of course, since demon lords don't do eyelids—and replayed those words in his mind.
Then realization hit.
Damn it. The kid was right.
The Dark Portal was still in a delicate phase. An unstable dimensional tether. A phone line across worlds with Medivh as the only caller. Cut the line—cut Medivh—and poof, the orcs stop coming.
Which would be a major inconvenience. Assuming, of course, these clueless little bugs could actually do it.
Sargeras' confusion flipped instantly into maniacal glee. Medivh's hijacked face twisted into something between a jackal and a nightmare clown.
"AHAHAHA! OH THAT'S RICH! I HAVEN'T LAUGHED THIS HARD SINCE THE TITANS LOCKED ME IN THAT STUPID PRISON! You, a speck of a creature, speaking the truth for once in your miserable life!"
His eyes—once Medivh's—now roiled with the red heat of hellfire, gleaming like two dying suns.
"Yes! Yes, you pitiful little meatbags! Kill Medivh! Cut the cord! Close the door! BUT—do you have what it takes? Do you think you can even scratch me?!"
"Come to Karazhan, then! March into my lair! Kick down the gates and try your luck! But don't forget—when you fail, and oh yes, you will fail—your soul won't just die. I'll keep it. I'll stretch it. I'll strum it like a harp made of screaming! You'll wish for death every second until time itself ends!"
With a final, throat-rattling cackle that could rot steel and sour wine, Medivh's projection exploded in a puff of corrupted magic—
—and then the screaming started.
King Llane shouted as the old court wizard convulsed.
The protective enchantments on his robe flared, sputtered—and detonated like fireworks from hell. The once-dignified wizard now looked like a burned-out ragdoll.
But that wasn't the worst part.
His limbs bent—no, knotted—like bread dough in a demonic baker's hands. His bones snapped with sickening pops, his muscles tore and coiled inwards. He was being folded into himself like a cursed origami project from the Void.
And still, he didn't die.
Some horrid, blasphemous spell kept him alive, aware, and screaming.
Then the guards began dropping.
Half the royal bodyguards were yanked toward the wizard by an invisible vortex of horror, smashing into the growing flesh-mass like they were being vacuumed into a blender. Their bodies fused—limbs, heads, torsos, faces—into a single heaving, muttering meatball of pure suffering.
And still—STILL—they were conscious.
"M-mom... help me..."
"Lothar... please... just end me..."
"I'm begging you... kill me... kill me NOW!"
That wasn't horror. That was a message. A demonstration of power signed, sealed, and hand-delivered by Sargeras himself.
Then the flames began.
Blue. Unholy, otherworldly blue fire that burned not just the flesh, but the soul. Their spirits rose from their bodies, writhing in midair, wailing in agony as the flames devoured what little humanity they had left.
Sargeras was gone now—his echo fading with one last smug chuckle.
All that remained was silence.
No, worse than silence: the lingering stench of cooked flesh, the aftertaste of screams that still clung to the air, and the stifling pressure of hopelessness that crushed every chest in the room.
This was not a battle. This was a massacre. A massacre that hadn't even properly started yet.
Sweat drenched his royal garb. His crown had fallen—he hadn't even noticed. His body slumped like a sack of failure on the throne.
All he could do was breathe. No—not even that. He gasped, like a man trying to inhale courage in a room full of fear.
Lothar snapped back to reality, fists clenched. But someone beat him to it.
His face was pale, his jaw locked—but there was fire behind his eyes. Not fear. Not despair.
Lothar met his gaze across the chamber.
And in that instant, two hearts of steel forged the same thought:
We will not go quietly.
They turned to the king in unison, voices sharp as sword edges.
"Your Majesty! Please permit us to lead a troop—and storm Karazhan!"
The battle wasn't over.
It had only just begun.