Sky Star
After an unknown amount of time, Zul'ra snapped out of her daze. Looking at the silent ground beneath her, she touched her face, feeling somewhat lost. It was still fleshy; she hadn't changed, nor had she lived for a thousand years. Only some things were vaguely remembered. ♨🐚 🐝♗
Besides the previous interactions, Zul'ra also noticed some new memories in her mind. These new memories were about C'Thun, the Old God she had defeated.
No, to be precise, it wasn't him who defeated C'Thun. Based on the history in his mind, Zul'ra rejected the idea that he had defeated the Old God. To be precise, what he did to C'Thun was simply to deliver the final blow using the correct methods.
C'Thun, also known as the Thousand-Eyed Demon, is feared by mortals as Old Gods, a Great Old One, while the Titans refer to him as a "Light-Dark Sensitive Parasitic Symbiote."
The Old God originally came from the Void. They would attach themselves to planets, constantly evolving, merging, and devouring everything. Eventually, they would take concrete form and take root deep within the planet soul, corrupting it into an indescribable evil creature. C'Thun was such an evil being, its roots even deeply embedded within the planet soul.
There have always been five such evil beings in this world, C'Thun was just one of them. He and the other four Old God even enslaved the elements that were born from the beginning of the world and built a Black Empire that ruled the entire world until the arrival of the Titans of the Pantheon.
To save the planet's soul and their slumbering brethren, the Titans made various attempts, including creating an Legion to fight the Old God and Old God servants, violently uprooting the Old God deep within the planet's soul, and dissecting and understanding the Old God. However, all these actions ended in failure. The most dangerous attempt to violently uproot the Old God even caused the planet's soul to bleed profusely.
Finally, left with no other choice, the Titans could only devise a long healing process and a plan to eliminate the Old God. They imprisoned the Old God in cages they created, and then waited for them to break free and leave the Star Soul on their own. When the Old God began to spread outwards again, they took the opportunity to use minimally invasive surgical methods to kill these parasites.
C'Thun was an Old God who fell into the Titans' plan. Tens of thousands of years ago, after being imprisoned, he was able to leak his power out of the cage due to an energy fluctuation and discovered a group of escaped insectoids. Using them as a foundation, he began to corrupt Anubisath, the construct responsible for guarding the prison.
Although he successfully released his power, it was not an easy task for C'Thun to escape from his cage. It was not until the Sundering of the War of the Ancients that he was able to completely corrupt Anubisath and break free of his confinement.
Although freed from his cage, C'Thun was somewhat aware of the Titans ' plans. Therefore, he changed his approach, first attempting to expand outwards with the insectoids to destroy all civilizations in the world, and then re-emerging. This was the cause of the First War of the Shifting Sands.
The First War of the Shifting Sands began smoothly, but at the last moment, the battle was rewritten by the dragons that participated in the war, and C'Thun was once again sealed within Ahn'Qiraj for thousands of years.
The thousands of years that C'Thun was sealed away were the most painful time for him, because the dragons used the power of the Titans to set up a seal on the outside, and the life force in the entire underground of Ahn'Qiraj was almost exhausted. In order to ensure the fighting strength of the Qiraji, he had to feed them with his own body.
In the process of feeding the Qiraji, C'Thun also made some attempts to get them to dig him out of the ground. This is why Zul'ra discovered countless insectoid corpses under C'Thun's body; those corpses were the remains of the insectoids who worked to excavate C'Thun.
C'Thun planned to participate in the war after leaving the ground, but this also caused him to fall into the Titans ' designation without his knowledge, separating him from the Starsoul. His body was weakened while feeding the insectoids, and he was eventually killed by the Kalimdor Allied Forces in the Second War of the Shifting Sands. The attack on C'Thun by Zul'ra and the entire Alliance was just a finishing blow.
The victory in the Second War of the Shifting Sands and the death of C'Thun were inevitable even without Zul'ra's involvement. This is why Zul'ra noticed that even if the timing of the Allied Forces' attack was wrong, the final result would almost certainly be defeat, but in the end, the dragons still helped to win. The dragons were the Titans ' backup plan.
Although the Titans ' plan succeeded, C'Thun was doomed, and the world's civilization would be guaranteed to continue. However, the plan had a flaw: the Titans failed to account for the characteristics of the Old God. The flesh and blood of the Old God could not be destroyed by ordinary means. Even if they were temporarily killed, their power would remain in the world, and they would eventually be resurrected.
The flaws in the Titans ' plan were also where Zul'ra found his value, because he played the role of finishing off C'Thun in the Titans' plan, and thus discovered the effect of Fel on the Old God. This gave him the ability to veto C'Thun's resurrection, and his decision to completely destroy C'Thun's corpse was correct.
"Looks like I'm the one who dealt with C'Thun!" After putting everything together, Zul'ra couldn't help but feel a little smug. C'Thun's death was the Titans' predetermined fate, and she had nipped it in the bud by cutting off its chance to resurrect. So, she was the one who dealt with it.
Fate is predetermined, but within a predetermined fate, unexpected results often emerge. For example, Zul'ra discovered the destructive power of Fel on the Old God by finishing off C'Thun, leading him to use Fel to destroy the Old God's corpse and interrupt the Old God's resurrection. There were also the iridescent crystals he unearthed from C'Thun's corpse.
Those iridescent crystals are energy extracted by C'Thun from within the Starsoul. With these energy crystals, even if they withdraw from within the Starsoul, they can still maintain a connection with it. This is a safeguard that C'Thun has provided for himself. Even if he is killed, given time, he can be resurrected. However, this safeguard has been completely destroyed by Zul'ra's Fel explosion.
After feeding on the Qiraji for thousands of years and being subjected to a series of Fel explosions, C'Thun's corpse is now reduced to less than one-tenth of its original size. The crystals formed from the star soul power that he used to protect himself naturally belong to Zul'ra.
These dreamlike crystals are similar to the water of the Well of Eternity, except that the Waters of the Well of Eternity is a liquid lake formed from the blood of Pantheon Titans wounded after he exterminated an Old God, while these crystals are solidified crystals, which is why they exude a rich Arcane energy.
Zul'ra unearthed a tabletop-sized crystal buried underground and named it "Sky Star," which means "Star of the Sky" in the Kaldorei language. It comes from the Titans ' name for this world, "Kalimdor," meaning "Land of the Stars."