Duke is dead. Again. As the months passed, he almost forgot the taste of death. It was like a very unpleasant, very frequent recurring dream. There are some things you can never get used to, like dying over and over again, especially when you're trying to save the world. In the game, it's not a big deal to be wiped out in the initial boss battle and run after the corpses again and again. It's just part of the grind.
In this real Azeroth, however, the punishment for death is more terrible than Duke could have imagined. His soul is not in the cemetery near Karazhan, probably because it's too fancy for mere mortals, and there is no option to give up treatment and resurrect in the cemetery. His soul had been beside his own corpse, which was a rather depressing sight, and the surroundings were filled with a lifeless scene. The death landscape, which he had once been very uncomfortable with, stretched to the end of his vision, looking like a very bleak, very boring, very dead painting.
In the black and white world before his eyes, dark grey and black clouds, like rotten cotton, were floating everywhere. They seemed to be pulled by some invisible force from Sargeras, and slowly swirled around Sargeras like a whirlpool, like a slowly rotating, very evil tornado. Just as he had feared, his soul would be easily corrupted and eroded when he encountered a higher-level demon. Now he was even more bound by the evil power of the Demon King, like a very spiritual, very unwilling tetherball.
System prompt: "You were killed by the demon king Sargeras. Due to the image of highly concentrated demonic power, your soul power is only 70% and your humanity is 60%."
"Warning, you are now in the range of Sargeras' soul corruption. You will lose 1 point of soul power and 1% of humanity every 5 minutes. You cannot leave the 100-meter radius of Sargeras in soul form. Also, your hair might turn green. Just a heads up."
The only thing to be thankful for was that Duke still saw the option of picking up a corpse and resurrecting, and Sargeras didn't seem to have discovered his special soul. He probably just thought Duke was a particularly stubborn, particularly annoying ghost. He didn't dare to resurrect. Resurrecting casually will only result in another easy kill, and will make Sargeras more alert, which was the last thing they needed. He couldn't delay too long. Otherwise, he would have no choice but to join the Burning Legion and become a demon, probably with a very bad uniform.
Duke can wait, but he won't sit there and wait for death. When he can't hold on any longer, he will naturally give it a try, probably with a lot of screaming. However, Duke in soul state will not sit idle. He did something that most mortals could never imagine – he hacked into Karazhan's defenses. From beyond the grave. Because why not?
This is not his own achievement alone; greater credit should be attributed to the system elves and a special existence. The power of the system wizard is beyond doubt. In the world with computers before the time travel, most of the complicated and relatively simple tasks were handled by computers. Not so in Azeroth. If there were no magic, this would still be a world where officers on the battlefield had to rely on shouting to pass orders, and if they were far away they could only fire flares or use cavalry as messengers. It was basically a very inefficient, very loud communication system.
Even with magic, magic arrays and other defensive systems, they are still largely simple trigger-based information feedback. For example, if someone triggers an alarm system in Karazhan, even the most sophisticated sensors can only barely sense the opponent's strength, number of people, and other basic information. To carefully evaluate the enemy's strength, the mage himself must use peeping methods such as Mage's Eye to confirm it with his own eyes. It was basically a very manual, very tedious security system.
If the master of Karazhan was still Medivh, Duke might not be able to do anything, but it was another matter if the master was Sargeras. In order to confuse others, the entire magic defense system of Karazhan was arranged in a human style. Basically, Sargeras was not able to use it well. After Sargeras completely controlled Medivh, he had no time to change the entire magic tower to the system used by demons, because Sargeras was busy plotting against the six members of the Council of Tirisfal. He had bigger fish to fry, and those fish were very squishy.
Sargeras didn't think it would be useful, leaving a big, gaping, very exploitable flaw for Duke. Besides, Duke has a helper – the soul of Medivh's biological father Elan. On the night of Medivh's coming of age, he was awakened by a nightmare. The huge energy in his body began to explode, crossing the astral plane, alarming the priests of Northshire Monastery. They rushed to Stormwind Fortress at full speed. Elan and hundreds of priests joined forces to suppress the explosion of energy. A few days later, the energy suddenly disappeared, Medivh fell into a deep sleep, and his father Nielas Aran fell to the ground exhausted and died. It was a very dramatic, very exhausting family incident.
But no one would know that Elan's soul did not completely dissipate. In history, after Medivh was killed by Khadgar, Elan's soul bound in Karazhan was eroded by evil forces and became a boss named 'Shadow of Elan'. He was basically a very grumpy, very dead ghost. After Duke dealt with Tristan, it was Elan's soul that he went to visit. Elan was still rational at this moment. After learning that his beloved child Medivh was corrupted by Sargeras, Elan decided to help. He was basically a very concerned, very dead father.
Few people know that Medivh's achievements were not only due to his mother Aegwynn's extremely powerful bloodline and the inheritance of the Guardian's power, but also benefited from the teachings of Nielas Alan, the former court mage of Stormwind Kingdom. So when Medivh built Karazhan, he used Elan's knowledge and design concepts. With the system AI working and Medivh's father acting as a traitor, it would be strange if Duke didn't stir up trouble. He was basically a very small, very dead, very effective saboteur.
After the system AI completely analyzed this defense system, Duke was no longer adding water to milk; he was simply adding milk to water to fool Sargeras. He was basically making a very elaborate, very magical, very deceptive latte.
In the air outside Karazhan, it seemed that the brutal "massacre" had just begun. In the void near Karazhan, which seemed to be just an ordinary building, countless complex and sophisticated magic circles suddenly flashed. Different colors represented that the magic circles connected to different elemental realms, like a very fancy, very dangerous light show. With the support of a huge pool of magic power, these magic arrays were able to open the openings connecting to the elemental world to the limit.
Along with brilliant magical light, huge blazing fireballs, slender icy ice arrows, and cyclones that could easily cut through steel, poured out in the direction where countless giant dragons were attacking. One hundred? One thousand? No, it was a magical storm composed of tens of thousands of magic spells surrounding the entire Karazhan. It was basically a very large, very loud, very colorful, very ineffective fireworks display.
This magical storm easily swept in the dragons a thousand meters away. "Aegwynn——" The largest red dragon in the group roared angrily in the direction of Aegwynn, its voice filled with betrayal. When seeing this situation, the Red Dragon Queen's first reaction was that she had been tricked. Spectacularly.
The dragon race has a fairly good magic resistance, but it is only good, and it is not completely immune to magic as the legend says. With such a huge amount of high-level magic pouring down, it is obvious that the dragon race will also suffer a great loss after this battle. No wonder Alexstrasza was mad. She could almost imagine that in an instant, her children, her people, would have their wings pierced or their bodies directly pierced by powerful magic, and would fall from mid-air screaming in despair, shedding a rain of noble blood. It was basically a very expensive, very bloody, very depressing light show.
However, after the torrential attack, it seemed... not a single dragon fell. Huh? What the hell?!