15. Chao is too much of a good guy—we're doomed! - [Farewell to the old, welcome the new, Happy New Year]

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Dick once remarked that the Light was the most idealistic of the six primal forces forming the foundation of the Azeroth universe.

He was not talking nonsense.

The history of the Dark Portal contains countless proofs of this judgment. Those who have walked in the Light throughout history have often erupted with unimaginable power when driven into desperate circumstances.

The most typical example was Tirion Fordring, the third wielder of the Holy Light artifact Ashbringer ten thousand years later, and Highlord of the Argent Dawn.

The latter half of the old paladin’s legendary life, earning him the joking nickname “the Old Buddha,” practically wore the word “cheating” across its face. His deeds included, but were not limited to, regaining the power of the Light after witnessing his son’s tragic death despite having forsaken the Light’s code; calling upon the spirits of the dead to grievously wound an opponent he had no hope of defeating when confronted by an avatar of Death; and—

Most spectacular of all—

The scene at Icecrown Citadel.

When he was frozen by pure Death energy and was about to have his soul dragged into the Shadowlands, he called upon the Light for strength and severed Frostmourne with a single blow. The runeblade had been personally forged by the Primus, one of the lords who ruled Death.

Although, at the end of the Old Buddha’s destiny, during the Battle for the Broken Shore, fel interference prevented the old knight from successfully activating his cheat mode, these deeds were already more than enough to demonstrate the Light’s “idealistic” nature.

Besides the Light’s favored child, the Old Buddha, there were Velen, High Exarch Yrel from another timeline, Sir Zeliek—who could still wield the Light even after being captured by the forces of Death—and countless other Light-walkers who had provided practical proof of such “cheating.”

The other primal forces rarely produced such phenomena. Some could not produce them at all.

Fel grew through the crude and simple process of pouring in greater quantities of energy. Arcane power was founded upon day after day of study and learning. Life’s flourishing depended on environment and time. Death marched forward through the even more straightforward accumulation of quantity and quality. And the strength of the mysterious and sinister Void perhaps relied even more heavily on mentality, spirit, and innate talent.

In short, “explosive, cheat-like growth” was the Light’s distinctive idealistic trait—something that had to be experienced firsthand.

Dick still had no way to analyze the underlying logic behind such explosive awakenings, but he guessed that it had something to do with an individual’s personal “code of the Light,” much like the way he had behaved when he first achieved such a breakthrough in his second life.

The more closely a Light-walker’s actions aligned with the code of the Light he had sworn to uphold, the more the Light would favor him.

Since it was an idealistic power, the sole condition determining whether the Light within a person shone brightly was probably whether that person remained steadfast in both mind and deed.

When the Old Buddha had once been filled with doubt and inner conflict, the Light had abandoned him.

But when faced with the crisis of the entire world being trampled beneath Death, he had completed a world-shaking reversal in the form of a divine descent.

That example alone explained everything.

Just as now, with the Light’s blessing upon him, Dick carried a warhammer that blazed like a torch. Each step he took across the consecrated ground toward Xakaar caused his momentum to build.

Under the Light’s enhancement, his absolute strength had already surpassed his own limits. The vessel of his body placed a ceiling on that enhancement, but it had nevertheless erased the previously uncrossable gulf between him and Xakaar.

When the old warlock saw the “awakened” Exarch before him, the curiosity and interest in his murky eyes grew even deeper.

But personal curiosity could not be allowed to stand before the resolve required to accomplish a great task. Thus, the moment Dick launched his charge, Xakaar struck back.

A Death Coil mixed with Dark Fury came crashing down. Yet before the orb of fel-saturated energy could even approach Dick, it was burned away by searing holy light. The savage Dark Fury thundered through the explosion, but it could not shake the Shadow Emperor, whose “wings” had already unfolded.

Felguards burst from the fel beams, axes raised as they rushed forward to hack him apart.

Dick knocked them flat with a single blow each.

The blazing warhammer resembled a lightsaber.

Every strike easily shattered the bodies of these lesser demons. Even those not killed instantly were covered in terrifying burns that expelled them from the material world within moments.

With every swing of Dick’s hammer, the sacred runes surrounding his body lit up.

The dancing illumination of those radiant runes, drawn directly from the Light, resembled the gathering of some destructive force. When the fifth radiant rune ignited beside Dick, even Xakaar sensed danger.

The old warlock dared not underestimate him. As Dick charged forward with the brute force of an enraged “holy thunder elephant,” Xakaar performed a summoning spell and called a Voidwalker, saturated with shadow power, out of the fel vortex behind him.

This creature was a body of pure shadow energy. It was difficult to classify as a true demon, yet it served in the Burning Legion and was frequently controlled by warlocks.

The instant the Voidwalker appeared, Xakaar sacrificed it, brutally draining its energy to form a heavy shield around himself. It was one of the warlocks’ most commonly used defensive spells.

Almost at the same moment, the warhammer, raised high, came crashing down with tremendous force. The instant it struck the demonic shield, cracks spread across it.

Under Xakaar’s wide-eyed stare, the radiant runes around Dick began to hum and spin. They transformed into pure destructive force and struck a second time at the point where the warhammer had landed.

The searing radiance made Xakaar feel as though he had been thrown into magma. The dancing flames of the Light, driven by an unyielding purpose, tore apart his shield and wrapped themselves around his fel-blessed body.

They roared, determined to burn the enemy into harmless ash.

It was a unique technique that abandoned all healing power and converted it entirely into destruction.

Xakaar was certain this was not any application of the Exarch of Argus’s battlefield tactics. He could only attribute it to Diakem’s unique understanding of the Light.

Nevertheless, the old warlock endured the blow known as Ashen Judgment—a strike of overwhelming force carrying a second burst of damage. His shield, formed by sacrificing a demon, shattered. His body, temporarily strengthened by Dark Resolve, was afflicted with searing Light. Numerous wounds opened across his flesh.

Yet he withstood Dick’s most destructive attack.

This proved that although his opponent had experienced an explosive awakening, his absolute strength had still not surpassed Xakaar’s.

“How can borrowed strength possibly seize victory?”

The old warlock sneered and swept his claws through the air. A brutal scythe of fel energy split into three heavy blows before him, smashing into Dick while he was still recovering from his spell. The Light burst apart and scattered from his body.

But Dick had never said that Ashen Judgment dealt only two instances of damage.

The scattered holy radiance was directed by Dick and, while the old warlock was likewise caught in his own recovery, erupted one final time.

The final strike of the “Holy Light Trio” was the most magnificent.

As Dick whirled his warhammer like a cyclone, the dancing radiant runes were swept up into a searing storm. Beyond the whirlwind strikes warriors excelled at, they added blows of equal destructive force. The glittering, razor-sharp runes cheered and sang, becoming solid in an instant and dragging the inescapable old warlock and the demons around him into their storm.

Ha! Take this, my ultimate three-point, fully stacked, super-conquest, Ashen Echo Holy Storm!

The demons’ collective wails announced the end of the smooth little combo. The Holy Storm did not dissipate after leaving Dick’s weapon. Those energy-forged radiant runes were sharp as blades, shaping the most savage destruction in the holiest possible form.

When the final rune dissolved into a feather of light and faded away, every demon around Dick and Xakaar had already been flayed and dismembered.

They looked as though they had been thrown into a storm of blades and spun around inside it. The fallen corpses did not possess a single intact limb, while the fires of the Light continued to burn, clinging to their fel-filled bodies and carrying out a faithful purification.

At that moment, the Light seemed to regard fel energy as fuel.

The scattered feathers of radiance devoured despair in great mouthfuls, transforming it into the hottest hope before erupting as holy flame.

Ring after ring of holy fire spread through the council chamber, creating one sacred ground after another. Behind Dick, Exarch Mardelan also charged forward with his own warhammer.

He walked through those sacred places, and each step of his charge caused the Light to cheer and cling to his weapon.

This passive enhancement had only been possible because he stood in Dick’s radiance, but the old Exarch was clearly no weaker than the awakened “holy spear” when it came to combat technique.

The instant Dick unleashed the Holy Storm, Mardelan leapt into the air with a roar.

Xakaar had been struck three times in succession and was just about to cast a cruel Shadow Burn to finish Dick when a holy warhammer descended from the sky and smashed directly into his head in a leaping overhead strike.

Everyone knew that once this unique combat technique—“the leaping chop”—was successfully executed, it came with a one-hundred-percent headshot rate. If you do not believe it, ask Mannoroth, who is still somewhere in the Twisting Nether happily destroying things.

The renowned “Destructor” was the most famous—and most tragic—victim of the leaping-chop arts in the history of the Dark Portal.

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Boom!

The burst of radiance blasted Xakaar away like a cannonball.

His entire body screamed as he was hurled into the fel beam ahead of him. The broken fel horn that fell before Dick was picked up by him as he gasped for breath.

Mardelan landed on the ground and leaned on his warhammer.

“Can you keep fighting?”

“Of course!”

Dick, who had just acquired a little “loot,” straightened. The Light’s blessing had been somewhat depleted by the three-hit combo, but there was still more than enough remaining for him to continue fighting.

His absolute strength had ultimately not reached the level required to withstand any more primal power. He was merely a mortal walker, not even a legendary one. No matter how much more strength the Light wished to give him, his body could not bear it.

The main concern was that if the blessing became too strong, Dick might accidentally “melt,” which would be rather embarrassing.

Ah, what a terrible feeling. A powerful patron had finally decided to hand out a red packet, yet he could not claim the largest share. It was almost as painful as losing tens of millions for no reason at all.

“How do we deal with this ritual?”

Mardelan swung his warhammer, killing the demons rushing at them, and shouted:

“Come up with something, Dick! We cannot remain locked in this stalemate.”

“Either destroy it or purify it. There is no third option.”

Dick and Mardelan fought back-to-back against the overwhelming assault of vicious demons.

“But destroying the ritual will cause the fel to surge underground. I suspect Xakaar must have borrowed the arcane nodes of Mac’Aree to perform it.

“That means that once the fel contaminates the energy nodes, demonic corruption will take root in Argus. It will spread on its own.

“Oronaar may have to be abandoned within a few months.”

Mardelan, who had already steeled himself for death, was startled by the answer.

Oronaar was the oldest and most prosperous city of the eredar. Millions of people lived there. The consequences of its contamination were impossible to imagine.

“Then what about purification?” he asked. “How do we purify it?”

“We cannot do it. The ritual is too large. It is directly connected to the fel power of the Twisting Nether. We need at least one naaru to come in person.”

Dick sighed.

“All we can do is keep fighting, kill the demons guarding the ritual, and weaken the energy sustaining the summoning. Those demon warlocks are being protected. Mardelan, take them out!”

He roared as he charged away. Mardelan rushed in the opposite direction, making straight for the demon warlocks still maintaining the ritual.

These creatures had wildly varied forms: sinister Soul Hunters, six-armed Doomguard witches, and other spellcasting entities from the Burning Legion, which was still in its infancy.

Maintaining the summoning ritual left them no time to fight. When faced with the charge of an Exarch who had embraced death and entered a state of murderous desperation, they could only rely on their demonic guards to intercept him.

But Dick was currently in the midst of an explosive awakening. His three-point Ashen Judgment had failed to kill Xakaar only because the latter possessed a leader’s template and an absurdly thick health bar. Ordinary demons, however, died the instant they were grazed, and perished the moment they were touched.

By the time the battered and disheveled Xakaar emerged once more from the beam, roaring with fel energy, four of the demon warlocks maintaining the summoning ritual had already been defeated.

Dick had claimed three kills. Mardelan had fought desperately to eliminate one.

There had only been five demon warlocks in the entire ritual chamber!

The loss of four of them was catastrophic. The flow from the “well of fel” generated by the grand summoning ritual had changed from a devastating flood to a weak, sputtering trickle.

The speed at which demons poured through the well of fel into the material world was suddenly choked off. In his desperation, Xakaar no longer cared about the dignity of a master. He shamelessly opened with a surprise combo, using Death Coil and Dark Fury to pin Mardelan in place.

The weaker Exarch was surrounded by demons, while Xakaar howled and lunged toward Dick, who was still slaughtering his way through the battlefield.

The old warlock had been knocked into the well of fel earlier. When he emerged, he had already entered his “second phase.”

Black and dark-green spines had grown around the crooked vertebrae twisted by the infusion of fel. Savage fel energy wrapped around Xakaar’s body in liquid form.

His hands had completely transformed into scaled claws. Even the tips of those claws had been “enchanted” by fel, taking on a crystalline appearance.

Dick sensed a vicious wind behind him. When he turned and saw Xakaar’s new form, he nearly shouted, “What the hell? Second-phase Gul’dan, when did you get here?”

Perhaps fel power simply lacked creativity. The abilities granted by its infusion always seemed to follow the same tired pattern.

In any case, old Xakaar lunged forward with a full set of “fel military boxing.” Every blow carried tremendous weight, along with terrifying flames and the twin burns of fel energy. The old warlock had never devoted much effort to close combat, but at that moment, the advantage was his, so he simply struck with all his strength.

When overwhelming force was on your side, technique hardly mattered.

Through sheer brute strength, he truly managed to entangle Dick. Holy radiance and filthy fel fire erupted continuously throughout the ritual chamber. The two men, both blessed by primal forces, no longer had the luxury of worrying about collateral damage.

Neither held back. The collision of their energies even created clear shockwaves resembling Mach rings.

Any lesser demon that dared approach was crushed by the complex area damage. Only mid- and high-ranking demons such as Doomguards were qualified to draw near the battlefield, yet even they were cut down in a few moves by Dick, who was fighting from the brink of death.

“Anach kyree! Material world… I have arrived… The apocalypse descends! Overlord Kazzak has come!”

Just as Dick and Xakaar were trading blows, a deep demonic tongue echoed beside Dick’s ear like a tape being played backward. He turned sharply and saw the astonishingly huge silhouette of a Doom Lord emerge within the now-narrow fel beam.

The Burning Legion had sent forth its vanguard of destruction.

Although it was still on the other side of the Twisting Nether, the fel aura radiating from it alone invigorated the demons around them, filling them with renewed vigor.

This was a demonic demigod.

At the very least, it was a demigod.

“You actually summoned Kazzak, the Overlord of Doom?”

Radiant Dick punched Xakaar in the face and seized the old warlock by the throat.

“Do you know that Kazzak is the most brutal of all demon lords? Every world he lands on is left with nothing but extinguished planetary cores! Do you truly hate your people this much, you old madman?”

“I am trying to save you fools!”

Roaring, Xakaar hammered his two fists—covered in fel spikes—into Dick’s torso. The destructive power of pure fel, combined with Dark Fury erupting continuously as though it had become a passive skill, shattered the bands of radiance wrapped around Dick.

The Light’s blessing was coming to an end.

It was not because the Light lacked the strength to sustain such power. Dick’s body simply could not endure it any longer. If the terrifying concentration of energy continued, his flesh would soon be “dried out.”

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“Light! Grant me the strength for one final strike!”

Dick called out.

The Light quickly answered the plea of the “Hand of Fate.” Amid the dimming radiance, the radiant runes lit up once again.

This temporary burst of energy nearly transformed him into a miniature sun. As he struck Xakaar down with a punch, he reached out and tore the soulstone of Archimonde from the ritual. Amid Xakaar’s furious roar, he crushed it between his fingers.

The headmaster’s despairing scream echoed in Dick’s ears, but there was no longer any possibility of his return to the material world.

Dick kicked away Xakaar as the warlock tried to lunge at him again, then charged toward the last demon warlock. He casually seized the fel-forged great axe from a nearby Felguard and poured every remaining ounce of holy power into it, transforming its edge into a crystal-like blade.

Just before Kazzak’s left hoof was about to step onto the soil of Argus, Dick hurled the battle axe with his final strength.

He did not aim at Xakaar.

He aimed at the last target.

The howling holy axe became a streak of golden lightning. Under the terrified gaze of the Doomguard witch desperately maintaining the summoning ritual, it struck her in the next instant.

Then it “melted” her.

The instantaneous burst of radiance triggered an explosion of holy flame, reducing her and every demon around her to ash.

Dick lost the last of his strength as well.

The light covering his body faded. Gasping, he collapsed to his knees. When he looked back, he heard Kazzak’s furious roar. The great demon lord, so close to entering the material world, was being expelled back into the Twisting Nether for lack of sufficient guidance.

Dick also saw Mardelan struggling to fight his way out of the demon horde.

He smiled.

But before that smile could last even a second, a fel spike pierced through his armor and torso from behind amid Mardelan’s furious roar.

The battered Xakaar gritted his teeth and drove the demonic battle spear in his hand downward, pinning Dick to the blazing consecrated ground.

The old warlock cursed:

“You! You self-righteous fool! You have no idea that you are wasting what little time Argus has left. The Dark Titan’s gaze has already fallen upon this place…

“What I am doing is the only path to salvation!”

With that, he abandoned the gravely wounded Dick and limped toward the summoning ritual, which was beginning to close. He waved a hand, casting Death Coil to blast away Mardelan as the Exarch charged over.

Then Xakaar raised both hands and used himself as the summoning node, restarting the ritual through an act of “self-sacrifice.”

It would not be an exaggeration to say that he was “melting.”

Even with Xakaar’s mastery of spellcraft, summoning a demonic demigod into the material world alone was practically an act of suicide. Yet he did it all the same.

This was not a sacrifice that an ambitious man who had lost his faith could make.

Perhaps, just as the old madman claimed, he truly believed that everything he did was meant to save Argus and its people.

Kazzak’s roar grew clear once more. The fel beam that had vanished pierced the heavens again. Xakaar endured unimaginable agony, yet his gaze remained resolute.

Everything seemed to be returning to its proper course—

Until a massive meteor struck the very center of the summoning ritual with perfect precision.

Under Xakaar’s stunned and despairing gaze, arcane radiance flashed and outlined the imposing figure of an eredar holding a holy staff and clad in the robes of a Grand Magister.

“Xakaar, the Enlightened—my elder, my old companion on the road to truth. Stop.”

Velen’s voice was filled with suppressed anger and murderous severity.

“This is your final chance!”

“Grand Exarch! Quickly, summon a naaru to purify the ritual!”

Grievously wounded, Mardelan remembered Dick’s earlier explanation. Spitting blood, he shouted:

“The fel is contaminating our world! Only the Light of a naaru can purify it!”

Velen froze for a moment. Then a subtle expression appeared on his face.

After glancing at the holy staff in his hand—a gift from the naaru O’kros a thousand years ago—the Grand Exarch seemed to make some kind of decision.

“The holy naaru is maintaining the barrier protecting the entire city. It cannot come here in such a short time, nor can it abandon that sacred duty now, child.”

He stepped forward. The roaring demons were casually blasted into dust by arcane missiles hurled from Velen’s hand. Xakaar was in the middle of maintaining the ritual and had no strength to break free from the fel’s restraints. He could only watch helplessly as Velen approached him.

“But I can…”

Velen spoke in a low voice.

“Tonight, the hour foretold by destiny has arrived.”

Then Xakaar saw the first strand of golden light erupt from Velen’s hand.

The Grand Exarch’s arcane power was transformed into radiant energy at an astonishing speed. Compared to the force and capacity with which Velen now received the Light, Dick’s extraordinary outburst moments ago could only be called a small splash.

Glorious Light gathered within the body of the resolute Grand Exarch, like a newly risen golden sun shining upon this fel-tainted wasteland.

When the radiant Velen reached out and touched the fel beam before him, Xakaar knew what he intended to do.

“No! Do not!”

The old warlock begged with utter weakness:

“Velen, stop! This is our last hope! You will anger Him! Argus will be destroyed because of this! Do not!”

“We once swore to protect our people, Xakaar. My old friend, it is you who have failed this world…”

That was Velen’s answer.

In the next instant, blinding holy light concealed everything.

Its brilliance was so intense that even Mardelan raised an arm to shield his eyes. The demons fled in terror from every direction. Pinned to the ground by the battle spear, Dick struggled to turn his head.

The final thing he saw was the fel beam surging into the heavens, transformed into golden radiance during Velen’s first purification.

The catastrophe was over.

Xakaar knelt at Velen’s feet and wept, as though he had lost the last of the conviction that had carried him this far.

He had completely broken down.

But he was not yet dead.

“Kill him… Kill him…”

With trembling hands, Dick picked up a nearby demon hand axe and hurled it at Xakaar. He used the last shred of his strength to accomplish this, then fell into a prolonged unconsciousness.

At the moment he sank into darkness, his final thought was that it would have been so much better if the one who had come were Kil’jaeden, cold enough to finish the job.

Velen.

A kind man. A hesitant man. A savior. A man who could never quite bring himself to decide.

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