Stormwind Wizard God-Chapter 603: The Battle Intensifies

After adding the Skull of Gul'dan to his arsenal, Ner'zhul's earth-shatteringly powerful magical might began getting forcibly shredded and scattered by these chaotically different elemental forces like confetti in a tornado.

There was no blood painting the walls crimson.

No souls getting obliterated into cosmic dust.

This method of compensating for inferior magical prowess through pure skill and mind-blowing control had a uniquely mesmerizing quality—even in the ancient, all-seeing eyes of Alexstrasza, a godlike being who'd witnessed over twenty thousand years of magical warfare.

The higher your power level climbs, the easier it becomes to steamroll opponents with raw brute force.

But this David-versus-Goliath approach, using cunning and finesse to topple a giant, was more electrifying than any slug-fest between equally matched titans.

Ner'zhul wielded quality like a perfectly forged blade, while Duke—backed by the mage tower's immense reservoir—commanded quantity like an endless army.

They ground against each other like massive millstones, each trying to wear the other down to nothing.

Especially when Ner'zhul's own Dawn-class dark power got consumed on the fire cloud's surface, exposing the purer, more terrifyingly profound god-tier power of Gul'dan's skull beneath, Duke's mana consumption skyrocketed faster than a rocket ship to the moon.

Only someone as balls-to-the-wall crazy as Duke would even dream of—let alone actually attempt—going toe-to-toe with a god-level Grand Magus. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ

Even Alexstrasza was left speechless with amazement. To avoid exposing Duke's invisible position behind her, she simply sighed with grudging admiration: "Duke, you've got some serious brass ones!"

Duke cheekily patted the dragon's magnificent posterior: "Don't I still have you as my ace in the hole?"

"I absolutely will not intervene."

"But what if this green-skinned piece of garbage decides to attack you first?"

At this point, if the Red Dragon Queen still couldn't figure out Duke's deviously brilliant scheme, she might as well turn in her crown and retire to a cave somewhere.

Listen, if you're in the middle of a death-defying battle and some jackass teammate starts pulling monsters toward you without warning, that's grounds for eternal hatred and bloody vengeance.

But if they politely ask permission before luring the beast over? Well, that's just good manners and professional courtesy.

That's right—the Red Dragonflight, bound by ironclad cosmic laws, was strictly forbidden from attacking ordinary intelligent creatures unprovoked, but those same laws sure as hell didn't prohibit self-defense when attacked by said intelligent races! The Queen was now remembering how Duke had been so humbly eager to learn earlier, pestering her about the specific rules and regulations of Wyrmrest Temple. Of course, she hadn't minded sharing—after all, this information was public knowledge throughout the entire Temple.

Now that she thought about it, the crafty bastard had been hunting for legal loopholes the whole damn time!

Alexstrasza was absolutely floored by his audacity.

"Hold on there, hotshot! Are you seriously trying to rope me into this mess? Your room and board doesn't come that cheap..."

"Come on, come on! You can't possibly bear to watch such a kind-hearted, righteously noble, world-loving master chef like me get brutally murdered, can you?" Duke was pulling out all the stops—manipulation, puppy-dog eyes, and shameless emotional blackmail.

It was obviously a threat disguised as temptation, dangling the promise of long-term culinary delights.

The Windrunner sisters flanking them were barely containing their laughter.

This perfectly illustrated the fundamental difference in worldviews and approaches. Dragons lived by rigid adherence to rules, constantly obsessing over cosmic laws and asking themselves "What am I forbidden to do? What boundaries must I never cross?"

Duke, being a modern man with a lawyer's cunning mindset, operated on the principle that anything not explicitly prohibited was fair game, and as long as the punishment was manageable and the profits were worth it, he'd take the risk without hesitation.

Absolutely! That's exactly right! Duke was actively trying to corrupt and seduce Alexstrasza into bending her principles.

The Queen was losing her composure. She knew perfectly well that the orc warlock before them, radiating malevolent power like a walking plague, was definitely not one of the good guys. But officially adding a new race to their enemies list required unanimous approval from the entire Dragon King Council—no exceptions.

However, Duke had just opened an intriguing new window of possibility for her.

She found herself wavering, wondering if this might be the first step down a slippery slope toward moral corruption. After all, demons typically tempted people into sin by starting with tiny compromises and minor principle violations, then gradually dragging them deeper into darkness.

Duke noticed her internal struggle and said reassuringly, "Look, this is just insurance—a safety net, nothing more. I never intended to force you to violate Wyrmrest Temple's sacred principles. Even without your intervention, I've still got roughly a sixty percent chance of taking down Ner'zhul on my own."

Duke refrained from pressuring the Queen into an immediate decision, having realized this touched on the lofty philosophical issue of "original moral intention." The righteous champions of Azeroth still placed tremendous value on maintaining pure motivations. While Duke genuinely wanted to borrow the Queen's devastating power, if he screwed this up and caused the Red Dragon Queen to violate her historical destiny and actually fall to corruption, that would be catastrophically unfunny.

Haven't you seen how terrifyingly powerful Arthas became once he fell from noble paladin to death knight? The transformation was absolutely mind-boggling.

Meanwhile, the ferocious battle had escalated to absolutely white-hot intensity.

The platform's air was thick with a nauseating, eye-watering stench. That smell—more destructively overwhelming than dragon's breath itself—assaulted the sense of smell and taste of every living creature present like a chemical weapon.

On one side raged hellish flames that would make the Burning Legion jealous, while on the other side sparkled a gorgeously devastating magical offensive that resembled the world's most expensive and deadly fireworks extravaganza.

When these completely opposite spectacles collided in mid-air, a massive dividing line appeared dead center—like a crack in reality itself.

This wasn't some simple optical illusion or party trick. This brilliant band of crackling light was steadily advancing toward Ner'zhul, constantly devouring and absorbing his scattered magical power while gradually severing his connection to the elemental plane of fire.

"This is absolutely impossible!?"

Ner'zhul's facial muscles convulsed so violently from shock that massive chunks of white face powder cascaded off like dandruff, revealing patches of his actual face that looked more horrifying than a witch removing her makeup after a three-day bender.

This situation was rapidly becoming untenable.

Ner'zhul's cowardly, yellow-bellied nature meant he was never someone who launched aggressive assaults. He much preferred to let enemies make the first move, then annihilate them with one devastating counterattack. Unfortunately, he'd been observing and analyzing for what felt like an eternity but couldn't locate any exploitable flaws in Duke's defenses.

Every single Duke appeared completely, unmistakably real.

They drew magical power from different dimensional sources and transformed it into varied, lethal attacks.

Rather than accept these as mere illusions, Ner'zhul was more inclined to believe these were Duke's genuine clones—created by slicing his soul into countless fragments and imbuing each piece with a portion of Duke's power and consciousness.

"Behold the judgment of absolute destruction!"

Suddenly, a fire cloud containing over ninety percent of Ner'zhul's accumulated power separated from the protective barrier wrapped around him, and in the next heartbeat, that massive cloud detonated like the wrath of the gods themselves.

The scene looked as if someone had simultaneously detonated a million grenades in the sky above them.

All anyone could see were cascading waves of liquid fire. These flaming projectiles filled every conceivable corner of the heavens. Within a hundred-meter radius, there wasn't a single safe haven for dodging this apocalyptic assault.

The ice shields protecting countless Dukes shattered like cheap glass. Except for those few Dukes who managed to activate Ice Barrier in time, the vast majority collapsed with blood-curdling screams before dissolving into shimmering clouds of illusory magical dust.

Alleria, who'd been hiding behind the doorway with only half her head cautiously peeking out, stood frozen in absolute terror. If it weren't for the real Duke secretly embracing her younger sister's waist and shooting her a reassuring wink from the other side of the door, she might have literally died of fright on the spot.

She suddenly realized that mages with their ice barriers, rogues with their vanishing cloaks, and paladins with their divine invincibility were all complete and utter cheating bastards!

At that moment, one triumphant Duke materialized with a cocky swagger, and the instant he appeared, he got hit with twenty different curses simultaneously and died two seconds later.

Duke grimaced and showed his teeth. Thank the Light he hadn't gone out there to showboat in his actual body, or he'd never have known which curse had killed him until it was too late.

Damn it all to hell! According to League of Legends logic, that should have been a wasted ultimate ability. How the fuck does this bastard still have such devastating combat power after blowing his biggest move?

He truly was worthy of being the first Lich King—a title earned through pure, unadulterated badassery!