Test Explosion

Morning mist shrouded the deserted island in the Reef Sea, while the damp sea breeze, heavy with a salty tang, swept over the sand. Deren crouched on the ground, carefully adjusting the proportions of Ammonium Nitrate, sweat-plastered strands of hair clinging to his forehead. Onyxia stood behind him with her arms crossed, impatience glinting in her dragon eyes.

"Not done yet?" She kicked at the sand by her feet. "For something this small, does it really need to be this much trouble?"

Without looking up, Deren continued adding precisely measured Aluminum Powder to the mixture. "What's the rush? This is science."

Onyxia gave a derisive snort, and a cluster of black-red Dragonfire ignited at her slender fingertips. "If you ask me, we should just light it."

"No." Deren finally rose to his feet and dusted the powder from his hands. "The moment you use magic, how could we possibly fool your father? We have to make sure it contains no arcane or psychic energy whatsoever." He pointed at a reef thirty meters away. "Go wait over there."

Onyxia's brows shot up. "Me? Hide?" Her voice dripped with incredulous mockery. "With this little—"

"With something that can blow your pretty scales into bloom." Deren cut her off, suddenly reaching out to grab her wrist. "Now, come with me."

Onyxia froze.

This human—this human so frail she could crush him with a single finger—actually dared to drag her around?

Her dragon eyes instantly narrowed to slits, scales flickering beneath her illusion, the dragon breath rolling in her throat nearly bursting forth. But Deren did not even look at her. He simply focused on pulling her behind the reef, muttering all the while, "Blast radius estimated at twenty meters. Shrapnel could go farther. We need to move back some more..."

Onyxia should have flung him away. She should have let this presumptuous insect taste the wrath of a dragon—but some strange curiosity made her allow Deren to pull her behind the reef.

"Crouch down," Deren ordered, already huddling into a ball himself.

Onyxia remained standing. "A mere mortal explosion—"

"Crouch!"

Deren suddenly stood up and forcefully pressed both hands onto her shoulders. Caught off guard, Onyxia was actually pushed into a half-kneeling position. Her eyes widened in shock, but before she could get angry, Deren had already lit the fuse and thrown himself forward, pinning her completely into the hollow behind the reef.

"You—"

BOOM!!!!

The deafening blast swallowed her furious shout.

Onyxia felt Deren's body jerk violently as he pressed tightly against her back. A scorching wave of air howled over their heads, while bits of sand and stone rattled against the reef. Some instinctive sense of danger made her spread her dragon wings, shielding both of them beneath them.

As the ringing in her ears gradually faded, Onyxia shoved Deren away and leapt to her feet in a rage—then froze in place.

Thirty meters away, the once-flat sand held a charred crater nearly two meters across. At its edges, some of the sand had melted under the extreme heat into glasslike crystals, reflecting an eerie sheen in the morning light. The air was thick with the sharp smell of smoke and gunpowder, along with a peculiar scent of burned metal she had never encountered before.

Deren staggered to his feet and wiped the soot from his face. "See? I told you—"

Onyxia suddenly grabbed his chin, forcing him to look up. Her dragon eyes contracted sharply with excitement, and the scales at her fingertips nearly pierced his skin. "Ten pounds... only ten pounds?"

Deren nodded with difficulty in her grip, though a smug curve lifted his lips. "Well? More fun than Dragonfire, right?"

Onyxia released him and walked toward the still-smoking crater. Her steps grew faster and faster until she was nearly jogging. Watching her from behind, Deren suddenly noticed that the Black Dragon Princess's tail was swaying uncontrollably from side to side, like a child who had found a new toy.

She crouched at the crater's edge, her dragon claws lightly brushing the sand crystals melted by the heat. The crystals crumbled beneath her touch with crisp little cracks.

"Again." She looked up, her voice carrying a pure delight Deren had never heard from her before.

Sunlight pierced through the thinning smoke and fell across Onyxia's face. To Deren's surprise, he discovered that this Black Dragon Princess, famed for her cruelty, was smiling. Not a calculating sneer, but a genuine, almost innocent smile.

"Alright." Deren smiled as well and pulled out more materials from his pack. "This time, let's try a formula with sugar added."

Onyxia's dragon eyes sparkled. Casually tearing away her damaged elf illusion, she stretched out beneath the sunlight, her jet-black scales unfurling. At that moment, she did not look like an incarnation of destruction, but rather like a child seeing fireworks for the first time.

As Deren watched her, he suddenly felt something tremble softly in his chest.

Just as the atmosphere quietly turned ambiguous, a bronze-colored rift suddenly split open in the air.

"What are you two doing this time—"

Chromie had barely poked her little head through when the shockwave from an explosion sent her tumbling head over heels. She landed in the sand with a splat, her twin ponytails covering her whole face, while the hourglass atop her staff nearly flew away.

"Cough, cough, cough!" She struggled to her feet and spat out the sand in her mouth. "This is even more ex—cessive than last time..."

Her voice abruptly stopped.

The young Bronze Dragon stood there stiffly, her eyes wide and round. Before her lay a massive charred crater nearly three meters in diameter, with the sand around its edges turned into strange glassy crystals. The air was filled with the acrid smell of burning metal, as well as traces of an energy she had never observed anywhere along the Timeline.

But what made her scalp tingle even more was this—Onyxia walked over and crouched beside the crater, poking at the melted sand crystals with her dragon claws, her face filled with almost innocent curiosity. Her black tail gently swayed behind her, exactly like a large cat that had discovered a new toy.

"You..." Chromie's voice trembled slightly. "You're really making a dragon-slaying weapon?"

Deren poked his head out from behind a pile of bottles and jars, his face smeared with soot. "Strictly speaking, it's 'high-efficiency fertilizer.'" He raised a clay pot labeled "Improved Formula No. 4." "Want to try it? With Aluminum Powder added, the effect is even—"

"Are you insane?!" Chromie screamed as she rushed over, planting the Hourglass Staff before Deren with a heavy thump. "If this thing can blast through dragon scales, do you have any idea what you're doing?! The entire Dragon Race will come after you!"

Onyxia lazily raised her head. "We only want to kill a certain old black dragon. Haven't we said that from the start?"

She said it so casually, as though they were discussing what to have for dinner. Chromie's little face instantly turned deathly pale.

The young Bronze Dragon's fingertips began to tremble. She suddenly realized—the two lunatics were serious. They were not indulging in wild fantasies or empty delusions. Step by step, they were truly creating a weapon capable of threatening the Aspect Dragons.

The Timeline flickered frantically before her eyes: Deathwing falling ahead of time, the Black Dragon Legion losing control, the Old Gods losing their balance of power... Countless possibilities burst like fireworks, and every single one spelled disaster.

"It's over, it's over, it's over..." Chromie tugged at her twin ponytails as she spun in circles. "Nozdormu is going to turn me into a whelp specimen..."

Deren patted her shoulder. "Relax. Just say the Timeline disruption was caused by an Old God."

"An Old God isn't taking the blame for this!" Chromie jumped up in exasperation. "The energy signature of this pile of 'fertilizer' clearly has—" She suddenly choked off, staring wide-eyed at the white crystals Onyxia was playing with. "Wait, you made all this from stinky water and acid water?"

Onyxia gave her a dangerous smile. "What do you think, little runt?"

Chromie's legs gave out, and she dropped onto the beach. Her Hourglass Staff fell beside her with a clatter, its Sand of Time draining at a frantic pace—an instinctive reaction of a Bronze Dragon in extreme shock.

"Too late..." she muttered. "It's already too late to stop it..."

Deren crouched down and handed her a freshly brewed cup of tea—somehow conjured from nowhere. "Look on the bright side. What if we succeed?"

Chromie mechanically accepted the teacup, her eyes vacant. "That would mean there's a Timeline... where Deathwing was blown to death by 'Fertilizer.'"

The sea breeze swept the smoke across the deserted island, and the three of them fell into an eerie silence.

Onyxia suddenly chuckled. "That sounds nice."

Chromie slowly raised her head and looked at the two lunatics before her—the human's eyes shone with crazed certainty, while the Black Dragon wore a delighted look of anticipation. A powerful premonition suddenly struck her: no matter how the Timeline changed, these two would definitely cause more trouble than the Old Gods.

"I'm writing a resignation letter." The young Bronze Dragon covered her face in despair. "Right now."

Deren crouched and sat down beside her. "Think about it carefully. If we succeed, it'll be a tremendous blessing for Azeroth! For example~" His voice dropped low enough that only the Bronze Dragon could vaguely make it out.

Chromie slumped on the beach, mechanically counting on her fingers and bending one down for each point.

"No Cataclysm..." Her index finger folded down.

"No elemental riots..." Her middle finger followed.

"No Azerite war..." Her ring finger surrendered as well.

Deren crouched across from her, brimming with enthusiasm like a merchant selling Health Supplements. "And that's not all! Think about it—" He pried open Chromie's remaining pinky. "No Alliance and Horde beating each other bloody over Azerite!"

"No Sargeras stabbing Azeroth through with one sword!" Her thumb was forced to surrender too.

At some point, Onyxia had leaned in. With great interest, she grabbed Chromie's other hand and forcibly pried open her index finger. "And what would happen to my Brother, Nefarian?"

"He'll enjoy the treatment you once had." Deren cheerfully pressed down Chromie's middle finger.

Chromie stared blankly at her hands, twisted into strange shapes, and suddenly felt as though the Timelines in her head had become as tangled as a ball of yarn played with by a cat.

"Wait..." she struggled weakly. "You can't calculate it like that. The temporal paradoxes will—"

"No temporal paradoxes!" Deren waved a hand like a fanatical pyramid-scheme leader. "This is called 'optimizing the course of history'! Look—"

He pulled a Stone Tablet from somewhere and rapidly sketched several crooked Timelines on it with charcoal:

Deathwing Survives Timeline: World destroyed → Heroes worked to death → Chromie worked overtime until she went bald

Deathwing Dies Suddenly Timeline: World at peace → Heroes on vacation → Chromie gets afternoon tea every day

Onyxia leaned over for a look, then used her claw tip to draw a little Black Dragon doodle on the second Timeline. "And we can save the budget for repairing Stormwind City's roofs."

Chromie's lips trembled. As a Bronze Dragon, she could see countless branching timelines—but no one had ever made patricide for the salvation of the world sound as easy and cheerful as a supermarket promotion.

"But... but..." She futilely clutched her Hourglass Staff. "Lord Nozdormu said that major historical turning points must—"

"—must be resolved by heroes?" Deren suddenly leaned closer and tapped the Stone Tablet with his charcoal pencil. "Then tell me, which hero of Azeroth ever saved the world by 'following the rules'?"

Chromie opened her mouth.

Jaina?—She had once nearly drowned Orgrimmar.

Illidan?—A professional rule-breaker.

Even Thrall would pull out some outrageous stunt that "didn't conform to the way of the elements" at crucial moments.

"See?" Deren pressed his advantage. "True heroism is throwing variables that even the Old Gods couldn't foresee into the course of history!"

Onyxia suddenly applauded, sparks flying where her dragon claws met. "Well said. I'm liking you more and more."

Chromie looked at Deren, then at the still-smoking giant crater, and finally down at her twisted fingers. A realization exploded in her mind like a bomb:

These two lunatics might really be able to rewrite Azeroth's fate.

Even more terrifying was that they were using neither Titan technology nor Old God power, but a pile of utterly ordinary "Fertilizer."

"I need a drink." The young Bronze Dragon staggered to her feet. "Something very strong."

Thoughtfully, Deren handed her a Beaker. "Seventy-five percent alcohol. Strong enough? It's super-strong liquor I distilled myself."

Chromie stared at the bubbling liquid in the beaker, then suddenly revealed a strange smile. "You know what? I'm suddenly looking forward to seeing Nozdormu's expression when he hears that 'Deathwing died from Fertilizer'..."

The sea breeze swept smoke over the deserted island, casting the three figures' shadows long beneath the moonlight. Among them, the petite Bronze Dragon was coughing while letting out laughter that sounded on the verge of collapse.