As Gandling shouted, the complex magic arrays in the room suddenly flickered. Archmage Antonidas felt the fluctuations in the surrounding space and hurriedly cast a spell while reminding, "Watch your feet!"
But before he could finish speaking, he saw the entire Scourge army teleport away, along with some of the Alliance members, including the mysterious summoner Aiden right in front of him, Dalaran's hero mage Rhonin, Paladin Summoner Dathrohan, and some priests, mages, and paladins who didn't have time to defend themselves.
Antonidas's heart sank. He had already guessed the effect of this spell: to teleport a group of people to another target space through a pre-set teleportation array. One could imagine that the Alliance's warriors were being teleported into rooms filled with Scourge soldiers.
This was a very creative spell, able to make the most of the terrain advantage in a familiar place, turning a disadvantage in numbers into a local advantage of overwhelming force. But when this spell was used by the enemy, it was a headache.
Antonidas immediately shouted, "The people who have been teleported away are nearby. Send small teams to search! Mages, let's crack the teleportation paths!"
He only hoped that those who were teleported away could hold out until help arrived!
After Aiden was teleported away, Kayle immediately found a direction based on the connection between them, and rushed out with a flap of her wings. Uther immediately signaled to Tirion Fordring, "Tirion, take a team to follow Kayle!"
On the other side, Aiden noticed something was wrong when the space fluctuated. The scene in front of him changed, and he appeared in a small, unfamiliar room with no windows and only one door. He was surrounded by two mages, three combat priests, and five paladins. But facing them was a large group of Scourge soldiers blocking the only exit, at least thirty enemies.
A paladin fell into the enemy ranks alone. The surrounding ghouls immediately swarmed up, and seeing that he was about to be torn to pieces, Aiden immediately raised the Staff of Time and cast two spells in succession: one to slow down the enemy's time flow, and one to accelerate the paladin—both spells learned from the Time Keeper, Chronormu.
"Rally to us, quickly!"
The paladin sprinted over in an accelerated state, while the surrounding ghouls seemed to have their hands and feet tied by rubber bands, moving incredibly slowly. The surviving paladin showed an expression of relief and shouted, "By the Holy Light!"
Taking advantage of the lingering effect of slowing down time, Aiden quickly said, "Paladins, stand in front to form a defensive line. Mages, provide fire cover. Priests, pay attention to protecting against enemy spellcasters' spells. We will try to shrink the defensive circle to reduce the area being attacked. I will protect you with spells!"
The warriors in this room immediately had a backbone when they heard his orders and were no longer panicked.
After the effect of the time magic disappeared, the Scourge soldiers launched another charge. The necromancers behind them summoned skeletons, summoned demons, and cast spells. With an absolute numerical advantage, they believed they would easily win this battle.
One of the warlocks smiled cruelly, "Struggle in despair!"
But the reality was not so.
Aiden cast spells in succession, and a countdown clock appeared above the heads of every enemy who could threaten them from a distance. It was the "Time Bomb" that the old Time Keeper had used in the Emerald Dream to make him recognize reality, a spell that made people wait for death in despair.
Aiden retorted, "You are the ones who should be despairing."
The warlock was a little flustered when he saw the ticking countdown on his head: "What did you do?"
Aiden explained very kindly, "Those on your heads are Time Bombs. When the countdown on them ends, they will—"
"Bang!"—This was not Aiden's onomatopoeia, but the bomb on the head of the first necromancer he had tagged with a Time Bomb had exploded, blowing it into pieces and scattering several skeletons nearby.
"—explode!" Aiden finished his sentence.
Then, amidst the desperate screams of the warlocks, the Time Bombs exploded one after another. The mages behind Aiden, who had been preparing to counter the necromancers' spells, were dumbfounded, and hurled fireballs and ice arrows at the mindless ghouls.
Seeing that the greatest threat had disappeared, the paladins' morale immediately soared, and they quickly eliminated all the undead that pounced on them with their Holy Light-blessed weapons.
Aiden heard the sound of fighting nearby, guessed that other troops had also been teleported over in this way, and said to them, "Let's go, let's go rescue the others!"
The other Alliance warriors who were teleported away were not as lucky as the people in this room—Darkmaster Gandling had been researching this teleportation spell for a long time. So he deliberately arranged manpower in advance based on the strength of the people teleported into the small rooms. Basically, the strength of the Scourge in each room could crush the humans. So the battles in the other rooms were very fierce, and the Alliance's warriors suffered heavy casualties.
In the first room that Aiden rescued, a quarter of the people had already died in battle; in the second room, only half survived; in the third room, only two living people were rescued.
Then he came to the fourth room and saw a familiar figure at a glance: the mage Rhonin, who had become very familiar with him in the past two days!
He was fighting the lich, Ras Frostwhisper. And he was the only survivor in this room—everyone else had sacrificed themselves. And he was almost at the end of his rope. Three ghouls firmly blocked the door, and the lich alone in the room was enough to keep him busy, not to mention the two warlocks hiding and firing cold arrows. If he hadn't learned some fighting skills from Vereesa Windrunner, he would have sacrificed himself like the other warriors.
But now, he could also feel that death was near. He once again thought of Vereesa's figure: ever since he met that beautiful and elegant high elf ranger during the rescue of the red dragon queen Alexstrasza a few years ago, he could no longer fit anyone else in his heart, and his mind was full of her. Later, the two became Alliance special envoys and traveled throughout the Alliance. She didn't seem to dislike him, and there was an ambiguous feeling between the two. But neither of them had pierced that layer of window paper—compared to the high elves' lifespans of thousands of years, human lifespans were too short. Both of them were full of concerns.
Some time ago, Vereesa had said goodbye to him and returned to her hometown of Quel'Thalas, hoping to get guidance on this relationship from her loving grandfather.
But Rhonin really couldn't imagine that this farewell might separate them forever.
"Boy, you are very powerful, but you will still die here like everyone else. Then you will be transformed into undead and join us! Hahahaha..." Ras Frostwhisper mocked while casting a spell. He no longer had the mood to continue teasing this human mage. It was better to get rid of him.
Rhonin was almost exhausted. Seeing the large ice arrow flying from the lich's claws, and the two shadow bolts that blocked his left and right retreats, he knew his time had come. He just subconsciously dodged to the side, but he was very clear in his heart that even if he could dodge the most fatal ice arrow, he would be killed by the shadow bolt flying from the left.
But in the next moment, he suddenly felt as light as a feather, and could even clearly see the flight paths of these three spells that were about to take his life, which were slow enough to be described as incredibly slow.
"What happened?"
Rhonin was a little confused, almost thinking he was hallucinating.
But as the three ghouls guarding the door flew in, he finally realized that he had been saved!
Then, a familiar voice came to his ears: "Lich, let go of that mage, come at me!" These words were the most touching words he had ever heard in his life.
Seeing Aiden rushing in with a large group of humans, the lich was so surprised that the soul fire in its eye sockets seemed to be about to spray out (similar to humans' eyeballs popping out).
"Human, how could you escape!"
"Hahaha, because you underestimated me too much!" Aiden added in his heart: I am the protagonist!
The lich roared, "Then you will be buried with them!"
Ras Frostwhisper raised his hand and sent an ice arrow flying towards Aiden. As for Rhonin, who had fought with it for a while before, he had basically lost his combat power and would not pose a threat to it. It only needed to kill this black-haired mage, and the rest were all ants.
Aiden cast a speed spell on himself, allowing him to easily avoid the lich's ice arrow. He turned around and returned a Time Bomb. The mages and priests he had gathered along the way blocked the exit at the door, casting spells to interfere with the lich under the protection of the paladins. Although their spells had little effect on the lich, and most of them were absorbed by its shield, it was better than nothing. The priests' Holy Light spells could pose a greater threat to the lich in this situation.
With the explosion of the Time Bomb, cracks were blasted out of the lich's skull. It let out a painful howl, and the soul fire in its eye sockets trembled—clearly, it had underestimated the power of this unheard-of spell.
"You will all die!"
The lich raised its claws and cast Frost Nova again. Without the archmage's mana barrier, the few priests' Prayer of Mending were simply unable to block the full power of this spell—it smiled with satisfaction, waiting for the scene of all the humans being frozen into ice sculptures in the next moment—that would definitely make its soul very happy.
"The only one who will die is you, lich!"
A voice it feared immensely came, and then it saw the angel who had destroyed its first body with a burning greatsword rushing in. The sword in her hand still radiated Holy Fire that could scorch souls, making it feel an uncontrollable fear again.
And its Frost Nova disappeared in front of a golden curtain of light emitted by that angel. Only the wanton cold air flowing in the room proved that this spell had existed for a moment.
Then, it was once again turned into ashes under the Judgment Sword.
"I am immortal!"
The lich's unwilling voice floated in the air.