Stormwind Wizard God-Chapter 618: Arthas Skywalker

Duke had brought more chaos to Azeroth than a tornado in a trailer park—he'd saved the humans from extinction, backstabbed the orcs like a politician breaking campaign promises, screwed over demons harder than a tax collector, and then got betrayed by those same demons in return like a sucker at a three-card Poker game.

Whatever the case, the original timeline of Azeroth had been mangled beyond all recognition—twisted more than a pretzel in a blender.

Without his trusty system AI keeping score like a obsessive accountant, Duke had no earthly idea how much Azeroth resembled its former self over the past decade. Hell, at this point, even if Kael'thas popped out of nowhere claiming he wasn't a prince but a princess in drag and begged Kil'jaeden to be his sugar daddy, Duke would probably just roll with it and call it Tuesday.

The world had gone to hell, but that was just par for the course now.

Duke couldn't figure out why there hadn't been any dramatic scene where Prince Arthas butchered half of Stratholme like a psychopath at a meat-packing plant and started his tragic descent into madness. But he remembered clear as crystal that Arthas's triumphant return from Northrend was supposed to be the grand opening act when he led the Scourge onto Azeroth's main stage for the first time, like death itself taking center stage at the theater of the damned.

Duke suddenly felt his blood turn to ice water. He grabbed Ilucia's arms tighter than a drowning man clutching driftwood and barked, "Hold up—you're telling me Prince Arthas is coming back in triumph? That Prince Arthas?"

Ilucia stared at Duke with eyes wider than dinner plates, looking as confused as a cat in a dog house.

Ten long years had passed.

Her memory of Duke was that he was absolutely flawless—the kind of man who could walk on water without getting his boots wet.

He could wave his hand and summon storm clouds; wave it again and bring down torrential rain like he was conducting Mother Nature's orchestra.

While shooting the breeze and cracking jokes, he'd torched a million-strong orc army like it was a backyard barbecue.

With the casual ease of swatting flies, he'd reversed the Barov family's fortune from rags to riches and slain the ancient terror Deathwing Neltharion like he was squashing a particularly annoying bug.

As far as she could remember, there weren't many things in this world that could make Duke sweat bullets and shake like a leaf in a hurricane.

If Duke was acting like this, either the Duke who'd vanished for ten years had turned into just another ordinary schmuck, or this situation was more serious than a heart attack at a tax audit.

Ilucia, who had been holding down the fort in Elwynn Forest like a general defending the gates of hell, didn't hesitate to bet on the latter. After dragging Duke onto the carriage faster than a bride running to the altar, she started spilling intelligence like a broken dam.

Unlike Varian's pathetic attempts at information sharing—which came out slower than molasses in January and required more pulling than extracting teeth from a dragon—this was the full monty, no holds barred.

"This whole clusterfuck starts with Medivh rising from the dead like a zombie at a funeral and warning all the kingdoms while playing prophet..."

At first glance, it sounded like history had decided to bite its own tail and start the whole damn cycle over again.

Medivh had eventually been brought back from the great beyond by his all-powerful mother, who apparently had more resurrection tricks up her sleeve than a carnival magician. Although freshly-risen Medivh, who'd received mental warning messages from spirits wandering the void like cosmic spam mail, no longer possessed his mind-bending Guardian powers, he was still a magical powerhouse who could turn most men into smoking piles of ash.

He'd started his grand tour by turning into a crow and flying to every kingdom like some kind of demented postal service, warning kings that the Burning Legion was cooking up a new scheme nastier than week-old fish. The only way to dodge this bullet, he claimed, was to pack up their entire countries like they were moving out of their parents' basement, abandon the Eastern Kingdoms, and sail across the ocean to Kalimdor—a continent so wild it made the frontier look like a suburban neighborhood.

However, not a single king was willing to swallow that bitter pill. Never mind that when Medivh was under demonic mind control, he'd opened the floodgates and invited the orcs to start the Dark Portal War like he was throwing the world's worst house party. His resurrection alone was enough to make any king more suspicious than a cheating spouse, let alone his completely bonkers proposal.

Relocate entire kingdoms?

What kind of moon-howling madness was this?

Did he think moving millions of people was as easy as herding cats?

When Stormwind Kingdom got beaten to a bloody pulp and even its capital was reduced to smoking rubble, did anyone pack up and sail away like rats abandoning a sinking ship?

In a world where land was more precious than a politician's promise, the kings laughed at Medivh's warning harder than hyenas at a comedy show.

The only kingdom that gave him anything resembling a warm reception was Stormwind.

Anduin Lothar, who was taking sick leave and feeling about as useful as a chocolate teapot, welcomed his old friend with open arms. After they'd shot the breeze for a while, Anduin was absolutely convinced that his buddy had genuinely come back from the dead—not some demon wearing his face like a cheap Halloween mask.

This was better medicine than any healing potion for Lothar, who had no children to carry on his name and whose only close friends were either six feet under (like Llane) or lost in the void somewhere (like Duke). Finding out an old friend was alive and kicking was like finding water in the desert.

After listening to Medivh's apocalyptic predictions, Anduin called a war council that included Regent Bolvar, Ilucia (who was filling Duke's shoes in running the kingdom's affairs like a boss), and King Varian, who was almost old enough to shave without cutting himself.

In the end, they told Medivh thanks but no thanks.

First off, home is where the heart is, and nobody wanted to abandon their ancestral lands like cowards running from a bar fight. Secondly, Duke had left behind more backup plans than a paranoid general preparing for every possible disaster.

After learning that his old friend was prepared for war better than a bunker full of doomsday preppers, Medivh didn't push the issue any further.

After making his rounds to warn all the kings like some kind of medieval Paul Revere, Medivh vanished from the political scene faster than a politician's promises after election day.

Soon after that, crises started dropping like bombs at a fireworks factory.

First came the orc rebellion. After ten years of lying low and licking their wounds, and with Lordaeron and other kingdoms not sticking to Duke's plan to wipe out the orcs completely, the green-skinned bastards had finally bounced back somewhat.

Since the orcs had kicked their demon blood addiction cold turkey, their tempers weren't as explosive as they'd been back in their old tribal days when they were higher than kites on demonic steroids. This made bleeding-heart do-gooders secretly help orcs escape like they were running some kind of underground railroad, causing the total orc population to surge past the 200,000 mark again.

Of course, these were numbers that Ilucia had counted with the precision of an accountant during tax season. The Lordaeron nobles, who spent their days watching orcs beat each other senseless in gladiatorial contests for entertainment, were too stupid to notice that their orc numbers were dropping faster than their IQs.

The orcs had fled to the wilderness, so naturally there weren't many left within Lordaeron's borders to count.

Then came the main event—the rise of the Scourge, more terrifying than a zombie apocalypse at a nursing home.

Just like Duke remembered from the history books, it was Kel'Thuzad who'd joined up with the Lich King and started spreading plague like a diseased rat in a granary. The only difference was that because little Kel had gotten royally screwed over by Duke's interference, even though the Lich King had brought him back from the dead, his power was weaker than watered-down ale, turning him into nothing more than a scheming backstabber.

He'd tried to spread his plague throughout the Eastern Kingdoms like a disease-carrying mosquito, but only managed to succeed in the northern reaches of Lordaeron.

It wasn't like his Cult of the Damned lackeys hadn't tried to poison Stormwind like rats in the kitchen.

Unfortunately for them, Duke's time-traveler knowledge had created a health and disease prevention system that exposed these traitors faster than a spotlight on a cockroach. Following Duke's teachings to the letter, Ilucia had her people use Holy Light interrogation on these human scumbags who'd sold their souls to the Scourge—and Holy Light didn't lie, unlike politicians and used carriage salesmen.

The plague ravaged Lordaeron just as expected, spreading like wildfire through dry grass, but thanks to another one of Duke's brilliant backup plans, the entire city of Stratholme was locked down tighter than Fort Knox, so no civilians got infected and there was no massacre like there should have been according to the history books.

But fate seemed to be playing the cruelest joke imaginable on Duke, laughing at him like a drunk at a funeral.

Duke had arranged everything ten years in advance with the precision of a master chess player, but got fooled by the river of destiny that had secretly taken a scenic detour just to circle back and kick him in the teeth at the starting line.

"What in the Light are you telling me? Arthas burned down an entire orphanage and killed over a hundred plague-infected children like some kind of monster?"

Duke fell silent as a grave. This couldn't exactly be called Arthas's fault—the poor bastard was caught between a rock and a hard place.

Arthas had originally been a golden boy who loved his people more than life itself and believed in the Holy Light with the faith of a true believer.

Unfortunately, he'd caught the attention of Ner'zhul like a mouse attracting a hungry cat. Needless to say, Ner'zhul had probably gotten the same treatment from Kil'jaeden as in the original timeline—murdered in cold blood with only his soul stuffed into a block of ice like some kind of twisted popsicle, then promised he could help the Burning Legion in exchange for a chance at revenge.

Ner'zhul didn't trust Kil'jaeden any further than he could throw him—which was about as far as a crippled dwarf could toss a mountain. He knew that once his mission was complete, he'd be more useless than a screen door on a submarine and the Burning Legion would discard him like yesterday's garbage. So he'd been hunting for the perfect body like a twisted house-hunter—a victim teetering between light and darkness like a tightrope walker over hell. If he could possess that body, he could break free from the icy prison of the Frozen Throne.

His target was Arthas Menethil—a noble prince ripe for corruption.