Aggramar's rebirth on Argus, a cosmic event that probably registered as a particularly unpleasant burp across the universe, was almost immediately sensed by the Azeroth titan soul, who was currently chilling in a distant corner of the cosmos, probably enjoying a nice cup of celestial tea. However, since the Star Soul's designated spokesperson, Galen, was currently off playing "King of the Hill" in a temporal side-quest, the diamond-encrusted, perpetually grumpy Ymiron, who served as a sort of cosmic mouthpiece, was unceremoniously ordered to go find him. His mission: "Find Galen. Tell him the universe is having a bad day. Don't break anything."
Many people had, unfortunately, witnessed the rather loud ceremony in Ironforge that year, so the news of the Diamond Vrykul's sudden appearance spread among the Alliance's top leaders faster than a goblin's bad debt. However, since Galen, the only one with enough charisma to herd a group of particularly stubborn cats (also known as Alliance leaders), was absent, no one dared to initiate an alliance meeting. They just sort of… awkwardly waited.
Until…
A golden meteor, looking suspiciously like a particularly flashy divine bowling ball, streaked across the sky, leaving a trail of sparkling cosmic glitter. It finally plunged into the Broken Isles with the subtle grace of a drunken hippogryph. Suramar's resident astrologer, Etraeus, a man whose life revolved around staring at pretty lights in the sky, was one of the first to discover the meteor. Conveniently, its landing point was practically in Suramar's backyard, so Etraeus, probably tripping over his own robes in excitement, rushed to obtain the meteor fragments as if they were the last slice of arcane pizza.
What he found was a golden crystal, shaped uncannily like a sword blade, radiating a faint, yet undeniably holy, breath of light. He poked it, prodded it, even sniffed it (for science!), but he couldn't decipher any other information. Since Suramar wasn't exactly known for its clerical connections (more for its snobby elves and glowing wine), Etraeus had no choice but to report to the perpetually exasperated Elisande.
Eventually, after a bureaucratic journey worthy of a comedy sketch, the crystal was brought to Stromgarde. From there, it was promptly whisked away to Azshara's New Shattrath City by Aragorn (yes, that Aragorn, apparently moonlighting as a holy artifact courier) and Alonsus Faol, accompanied by a retinue of paladins and priests, all looking very serious and important. They were greeted by Garrison Commander Porus, one of the three perpetually serious members of New Shattrath's ruling triumvirate.
"Welcome, fellow travelers of the Holy Light, to New Shattrath. May the Holy Light shine upon you forever, and may your coffee always be strong!" Porus intoned, his voice a deep, resonant rumble.
"The Light is with you, brother, and may your socks never get soggy!" Alonsus replied, his own voice equally solemn. After exchanging pleasantries that probably involved more holy light than actual conversation, Borus led everyone to the Seat of Holy Light in the very center of the city and reverently placed the Holy Light Crystal on the central platform.
As the most senior clergyman in all of Azeroth, Alonsus Faol had already given this crystal a thorough, almost obsessive, examination. Seeing the garrison officer's perpetually serious expression, he asked, "Polus, my dear Draenei, you lot have been wielding the Holy Light tens of thousands of years longer than us mere mortals. I wonder, do you, by any chance, recognize the origin of this… glowing rock?"
Porus, after a moment of intense contemplation (and probably a quick mental prayer), confirmed the crystal's identity with a solemn nod. "If I'm not mistaken, and I rarely am when it comes to glowing, holy objects, it should be a Holy Heart."
"Heart of Holy Light?" Everyone present carefully pondered the meaning of this name, probably imagining a giant, glowing, celestial ventricle.
Borus, being a straightforward Draenei who preferred blunt honesty to poetic ambiguity, explained directly: "It is the core of a Naaru."
Everyone in the room gasped collectively, probably knocking over a few ceremonial candles. Naaru! Especially Uther, Turalyon, and the other high-ranking officials, who had personally followed Galen to meet the Naaru. If Galen hadn't painstakingly explained to them the true origin of the Naaru, patiently telling them that these beings were merely advanced life forms who used holy light, but were not the entirety of the holy light, those two would have probably started worshipping the Naaru as the actual God of Holy Light from day one.
"So… this Naaru is dead?" Turalyon muttered to himself, looking slightly disappointed, as if he'd just missed a celestial concert.
"No, no, not at all!" Borus's expression was serious, almost indignant. "We Draenei once possessed the body fragments of a powerful Naaru who did pass away. Compared to those dusty old relics, this Heart of Light is absolutely bursting with vitality! That is to say, this Naaru is still alive! I can feel that there are secrets buried inside, like a particularly stubborn cosmic pickle jar, but I simply can't read the contents!"
Faol wasn't surprised. The functions of the garrison officers were, after all, similar to those of the paladins. They were more like holy warriors who used holy light to smite things, and their understanding of the holy light was not as delicate or nuanced as that of the priests, who spent their days pondering the deeper, more philosophical aspects of glowing.
"I wonder," Faol mused, "where Prophet Velen is? He'd probably have this thing singing show tunes in five minutes."
When Porus heard Alonsus's question, he showed a genuinely puzzled expression, as if Faol had just asked him the square root of a banana. "Don't you know? The Prophet left New Shattrath at the personal invitation of His Majesty Galen and is currently… not here."
This… this was a problem. Faol hadn't considered that. The key point was that after Galen had meticulously arranged the five-year plan, he had promptly disappeared without a trace, presumably off to cause chaos in another dimension.
Faol turned his gaze to Aragorn, who looked like he was trying very hard to blend into the wallpaper. "Aragorn, my boy, do you know where they are? And please, no more cryptic answers."
Aragorn, sensing the collective glare of a dozen frustrated holy men, did not hide it. "Galen invited the Prophet to participate in a 'major operation.' He used air quotes. It was unsettling." After that, Aragorn turned to Porus. "The Prophet did tell me that there's a Naaru in your city. Perhaps he can help us unlock the secret of the Heart of Light? Or at least tell us if it's going to explode."
Blackmoore's plane. That was Galen's rather uninspired, yet perfectly accurate, name for the timeline he was currently inhabiting. This feeling of being in another timeline was just like when he kept changing game dimensions in order to catch rare, elusive soul beasts. A bit like cosmic Pokémon Go, but with more collateral damage.
Several years had passed in Blackmoore's plane at this point, and Galen, ever the efficient conqueror, had expanded the territory of Stromgarde several times over, using his previous, highly destructive methods. In addition to gobbling up the Wetlands, The Hinterlands, and the Northron Highlands of the Eastern Kingdoms, he had also taken a delightful little trip to Northrend and established colonies in the Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, Grizzly Hills, and the Sholazar Basin. In this time stream that was, quite literally, about to be destroyed, he had not bothered with any silly notions of "sustainable development." Oh no. He had mined minerals and cut down trees on a scale that would make a goblin blush, causing widespread dissatisfaction among some of the local forces…
The most troublesome of them were a particularly whiny group of night elves living in Northrend. They had, with annoying regularity, attacked the loggers in his colonies, and these "slaughters of farmers" (as Galen so delicately put it) had caused significant losses to his burgeoning population. After being expelled many, many times, these stubborn night elves had united with the equally stubborn natives of Northrend: the tuskarrs, the yaks (yes, yaks!), and the bear monsters. Together, they had formed an organization with the ridiculously saccharine name, the "Society of Benevolence," and had dared to arm themselves against the glorious gathering army of Stromgarde.
Galen couldn't believe it. In this timeline, he had somehow managed to become the very thing he hated most: a villain, a destructive force, like the Hemmit Expedition and the Venture Capital Corporation, only with more magical power and a better fashion sense.
But…
He glanced at the display of the Heart of Origin. The current population was: 99,999,999 / 100,000,000.
Oh, it smelled so good. So close. He simply could not stop.
However, a pragmatic (and slightly annoyed) Galen had decided to abandon a large number of his Northrend colonies. All his gathering armies were now concentrated in the Sholazar Basin, and then, with a flourish of arcane energy, he sealed the entrance, isolating the basin from the outside world. The main reason was that his current population increase of 20 million was almost entirely made up of farmers, who, while excellent at tilling soil, were less than stellar in a direct confrontation. His actual combat power was only a few hundred thousand. They needed to garrison the more important Eastern Kingdoms and simply couldn't concentrate their strength to destroy the annoyingly righteous Ren De Society in one go.
The leader of the Society of Benevolence, Archdruid Lathoris, was Malfurion's disciple. And Galen knew the drill: if you beat a younger one, an older one would come. And if you beat an older one, an even older, grumpier one would come. Although they called this place the Blackmoore Plane, the night elves were still, annoyingly, the overlords of this world. If he got dragged into a prolonged, messy quagmire of war with them, it would go against his original intention of simply getting rich quick and leaving.
However, even though Galen had strategically retreated in the north to avoid trouble from the tree-hugging night elves, his meteoric rise in the Eastern Kingdoms was an indisputable fact. And as always, trouble eventually came knocking.
In the ancient, slightly dusty royal court of Stromgarde, a female child was diligently practicing swordsmanship in the courtyard. The girl, who looked about seven or eight years old, wore a helmet of courage (which probably weighed more than she did), a full set of armor of courage (equally cumbersome), and wielded a shining true silver holy sword in her tiny hands. Due to the delightful intricacies of time flow, Artoria had accompanied Galen here for a year, during which time Galen had, with surprising patience, taught his daughter the finer points of swordsmanship. And her heirloom suit? That was the very special gift Galen had given to Artoria for her eighth birthday, probably after she successfully negotiated a particularly tricky goblin trade deal.
However, the idyllic father-daughter teaching time did not last long, as Varokal, the prince's perpetually flustered confidant, burst in hurriedly, looking like he'd just seen a particularly angry murloc.
"Your Highness! Something utterly catastrophic has happened!"
Galen was a little unhappy, primarily because his sword lesson had been interrupted, but Varokal was a confidant after all. He stopped instructing his daughter and turned to Varokal, an eyebrow raised. "What happened, Varokal? Did someone run out of ale?"
"Your Highness," Varokal gasped, practically vibrating with panic, "our mining team was attacked on the west side of Wall Thoradin! It was those wretched bastards from Alterac, I tell you! And the dwarves of Hinterland! They surrounded our sawmill and actually warned us not to continue cutting down trees in the forest! The audacity!"
Oh no, this was indeed truly bad news. However, Galen had already anticipated this situation. His behavior of gleefully destroying nature would inevitably be opposed by local forces. However, although they had names that were vaguely familiar to Galen, they were not the same group of individuals that Galen knew. In essence, they were just strangers, and therefore, entirely expendable. What's more, this world was already heading towards its inevitable destruction. Not only could Galen not save them, he couldn't even save the 20 million farmers he had so painstakingly trained during this period!
Galen had tried it, of course. The return scroll, which was always effective in his own timeline, simply could not take people across the infernal barrier of time and space and return to their own world! They had come here through the Road of Time, so they must go back through the Road of Time! And Murozond, bless his tiny, cosmic heart, could only take a few people at most. There was simply no way he could transport 20 million people!
When Galen thought about the utterly soul-crushing loss of these 20 million people, his heart bled! He even regretted playing the time travel game and creating this parallel universe in the first place! It was just so inefficient! However, as the values in the resource column of his Heart of Origin continued to increase, he no longer worried about it quite so much! After all, the resources of Azeroth and Draenor in his own time and space were simply not enough to support his rapid, utterly insane upgrade schedule! Now, in order to avoid further losses, he had reluctantly stopped training new units in this time and space. As long as the magical condition of 100 million people was unlocked, he would immediately upgrade the imperial capital! At that point, even if these populations were lost, the base would not be downgraded! A true win-win, really.
Thinking of this, Galen's heart hardened, turning into a solid block of pure, unadulterated pragmatism.
"I will send a large army into the Hinterlands," Galen declared, his voice resonating with cold authority. "I believe those Wildhammer dwarves will change their minds by then. Perhaps after a few demonstrations of our superior forestry techniques." He glanced at Varokal, a glint in his eye. "Also, let Marshal Osterley lead the Stromgarde militia to the border. My father, bless his perpetually warring soul, handled the border conflict with the Kingdom of Alterac a few years ago. I hope the marshal can keep the previous tradition… of utter, glorious annihilation."
Even though they were Thoras from different worlds, their styles, it seemed, were uncannily similar. Iron-blooded and tough. Especially when it came to Alterac, Galen knew his father's approach all too well. Conflict? That meant the bigger, the better! In the past, the two sides were under pressure and mediated, but later the king of the Kingdom of Lordaeron was replaced, and Stromgarde declined and Thoras died, so the war did not break out. Now, with Galen's subtle (and not-so-subtle) instigation, how could they not have an excuse to proceed reasonably without doing something truly spectacular? Although he wasn't afraid of the war-weariness of the people of Stromgarde, as he was born in China, he was accustomed to going to war with a legitimate, utterly justifiable reason. Also, the current king of the Kingdom of Alterac was called Daval Prestor. Given his utterly predictable personality, as long as this conflict occurred, Galen didn't have to do anything; Prestor would, obligingly, do exactly what Galen wanted…
Sin!
After Varokar took the order and scurried away, Galen felt a flicker of remorse, a fleeting pang of something akin to guilt. He never expected that one day, he, Galen, the epitome of the lawful good camp, would jump directly to the lawful evil camp, probably skipping a few chaotic neutral steps along the way.