Chapter Summaries

Herad reshaped the land around Halfhill, creating irrigation channels and diverting a river into a westward canal. Farmers gained more usable farmland, while the Hobgoblins saw a new route for transporting goods to the Serpent's Spine and Kun-Lai Summit.

• Herad arrived in Halfhill, where the mayor cleared the hilltop so he could reshape the terrain.
• Herad used the Hammer of Khaz'goroth to locate obsidian deposits and set earth elementals to excavating them.
• Herad created irrigation channels that divided the surrounding land into uniform fields, and Halfhill's residents coordinated their land allocations.
• Herad raised a dam near Halfhill and diverted the river westward toward the Serpent's Spine.
• The Hobgoblins recognized that the canal could carry goods from the Valley of the Four Winds to the Serpent's Spine and onward to Kun-Lai Summit.

Herad began mining the rich obsidian deposits beneath the Vale of Eternal Blossoms from the head of a giant Mogu statue. When a Mogu army attacked the statue, Herad animated its arm and sent their earth caster flying, driving the soldiers away.

• After reshaping the Valley of the Four Winds, Herad moved north and chose the unguarded area around the two Mogu statues as his foothold.
• Herad hid the Hammer of Khaz'goroth in a hollow atop the southern statue and used the Power of the Earth to locate obsidian deposits beneath the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.
• A Mogu earth caster led soldiers to the statue after sensing the powerful flow of the Power of the Earth.
• The Mogu soldiers struck the statue with their weapons, but their attacks barely chipped its boots.
• The earth caster cast Earthquake at the statue, so Herad made its arm move and swept the caster thousands of meters away with its stone spear.
• The Mogu soldiers abandoned their attack and fled in panic.

Herad used the Mogu statue to crush the Mogu forces, then sent Xal'atath to uncover the location of Y'Shaarj's heart. Xal'atath slaughtered Mogu at the palace and began interrogating their souls for the secret.

• Herad watched the Mogu statue trample Mogu soldiers, causing the army to flee.
• Herad ordered Xal'atath to abandon hunting Mantid and investigate the Mogu for information about Y'Shaarj's heart.
• Xal'atath killed Mogu soldiers and extracted their souls to interrogate them.
• Xal'atath stormed Mogu'shan Palace and killed the powerful Mogu who might know where the heart was.
• Xal'atath began interrogating the dead Mogu for the heart's location.

Herad raised the chamber holding Y'Shaarj's heart, deceived its guardian Norushen, and began purifying the heart with Holy Light. Norushen left to search for Highkeeper Ra while Herad continued cleansing the dangerous relic.

• Herad raised Y'Shaarj's buried chamber, and Norushen emerged to investigate the giant Mogu statue.
• Herad claimed he was the newly appointed Earth-Warder, and Norushen believed him after sensing a faint Titan aura.
• Norushen told Herad what he had learned about Y'Shaarj's heart, then headed north to search for Highkeeper Ra.
• Herad dismantled the chamber, removed Y'Shaarj's heart from its runic chest, and enveloped it in Holy Light.
• Herad's Holy Light scorched the heart and rapidly purified its sha energy.

Herad absorbed the remaining void essence from Y'Shaarj's heart through Xal'atath and discovered enough obsidian in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms to plan a ten-million-tonne Obsidian Warship. He refined the ship's shape and weapons layout, then uploaded the plan for the super magical computer to develop.

• Herad gave Y'Shaarj's ruined heart to Xal'atath, which absorbed its pure void essence and strengthened the Full Moon Scimitar.
• Herad discovered extensive obsidian deposits in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, estimating that they could supply ten million tonnes.
• Herad abandoned his thirty-million-tonne target and planned a streamlined, submarine-shaped Obsidian Warship suited to teleportation.
• Herad designed the warship for three-dimensional combat, with 360 energy cannons that could rotate through firing shifts or discharge energy in emergencies.
• Herad uploaded the shipbuilding plan to the super magical computer's database for further design work.

Herad expanded the Obsidian Warship’s design to make better use of his growing obsidian supply and began rebuilding it into a larger, heavily armed vessel. Alleria and Sylvanas criticized its appearance, but its entertainment systems impressed them.

• Herad mined the Jade Forest, the Krasarang Wilds, and the surrounding Broken Isles, bringing the Obsidian Warship’s tonnage to twelve million.
• Herad revised the design to include four hundred and fifty concealed energy cannons, with one hundred and fifty able to fire at once.
• Herad dismantled the old Obsidian Warship on Broken Planet Mardum and reused its modules to build a new, thousand-meter-long ship.
• Alleria and Sylvanas called the new ship ugly, but they stopped criticizing it after discovering its entertainment systems.
• Herad used the ship’s super magical computer to adapt forgotten Draenei games for his own use.

Herad’s upgraded Obsidian Warship tested a massive Heavy Energy Cannon before setting out to fight a Burning Legion force head-on. When Beholders spotted the ship near its target planet, Kil'jaeden ordered a fleet to prepare an ambush.

• Herad’s laboratories developed improved Energy Cannons, whose shots the Obsidian hull could absorb and recycle with minimal energy loss.
• The Obsidian Warship tested its Heavy Energy Cannon, designed to strike powerful ground forces such as Archimonde.
• After a brief test flight, the warship opened a Portal and headed to a planet on the fringes of Argus for live combat.
• Beholders spotted the black warship and relayed its arrival to Argus.
• Kil'jaeden ordered reinforcements to set up an ambush near the target planet, and the fleet began moving into position.

The Obsidian Warship fought off the Burning Legion fleet, using its superior range and precise automated weapons to destroy hundreds of enemy ships while its attacks also devastated demons on the planet below. After the fleet completed its encirclement, Herad charged the enemy flagship and crippled its elite guard, discovering that the heavily armored flagship had traded its weapons for stronger shields.

• The Obsidian Warship destroyed over a hundred Burning Legion Warships with its opening volley, then survived their return fire and destroyed more ships with precise counterattacks.
• The Obsidian Warship maneuvered near the planet's atmosphere, causing inaccurate Fel beams to devastate the surface and kill demons below.
• The Burning Legion fleet completed its encirclement and activated arrays to block Spatial Magic, but the Obsidian Warship stayed and charged toward the flagship.
• The supreme commander ordered the flagship's elite guard to fire a volley, but the Obsidian Warship survived and destroyed more than four hundred guarding ships.
• Herad saw the flagship withstand two attacks and realized its energy cannons had been replaced with shield generators.

Herad’s Obsidian Warship destroyed the Burning Legion’s fleet, including the ships that fled back to Argus. With Kil’jaeden unable to face the warship himself, he began summoning Argus the Unmaker.

• Herad pursued the Burning Legion flagship, and the Obsidian Warship destroyed ships while its fleet’s mistaken orders threw the battle into chaos.
• The flagship exploded, and the Obsidian Warship routed the remaining fleet after breaking the formation that blocked Spatial Magic.
• Herad ordered the Obsidian Warship to leave the wreckage and execute its next plan.
• The Obsidian Warship appeared above Argus and destroyed the Burning Legion ships that had escaped the battle.
• Kil’jaeden watched the fleet’s destruction and began a ritual to summon Argus the Unmaker.

Herad assessed the colossal Argus the Unmaker as he emerged from a fissure on Argus and tested the Titan’s defenses with the Obsidian Warship’s cannons. Argus’s barrier repelled the attack, and after his counterattack disintegrated an asteroid, Herad ordered the warship to retreat.

• Herad estimated that the unfinished Argus the Unmaker stood over two hundred thousand meters tall and doubted the Obsidian Warship could harm him.
• Herad ordered the Central Control System to fire more than a hundred energy cannons at Argus the Unmaker.
• Argus the Unmaker’s death-based barrier absorbed the bombardment without a ripple, protecting Eredath and reassuring Kil'jaeden.
• Argus the Unmaker hurled a mountain-sized sphere of death energy toward the Obsidian Warship, but it missed and destroyed a passing asteroid.
• Herad ordered the Obsidian Warship to retreat farther away after seeing the sphere reduce the asteroid to dust.

The Obsidian Warship escaped Argus the Unmaker after a grazing black sphere nearly overloaded it, and Herad concluded that only a much larger ship could threaten the Titan. He stayed near Argus to test the nearly completed Heavy Energy Cannon, while the sisters eagerly planned armor made from processed Devilsaur hides.

• Argus the Unmaker's increasingly accurate black spheres made the Obsidian Warship retreat, and a grazing shot nearly overloaded it.
• Herad teleported Alleria and Sylvanas to safety as the warship fired five volleys of energy projectiles, then fled behind a moon.
• Herad realized the warship needed vastly more obsidian to stand a chance against Argus, but gathering it from Azeroth's monster-filled oceans frightened him.
• Herad found that the Heavy Energy Cannon could be tested within two days and decided to use Argus as its live-fire target.
• Herad told Alleria and Sylvanas that their Devilsaur hides were nearly finished processing, and they began choosing leather armor styles.

Herad helped Alleria and Sylvanas adapt Devilsaur hide into practical leather armor after the treated hide proved too soft to hold its shape. They settled on lightweight Mithril armor components to reinforce it, and Herad went to witness the Heavy Energy Cannon’s final assembly.

• Alleria and Sylvanas chose conventional medium leather armor, and Herad proposed a new design for the Devilsaur hide.
• The treated hide proved too soft for standard hard leather armor, so Herad asked the Super Magic Computer for a workable plan.
• The computer suggested a full Mithril plate suit over the hide, but Herad, Alleria, and Sylvanas found it impractical for Rangers.
• Alleria and Sylvanas revised the design to retain only Mithril pauldrons, a breastplate, and skirt armor, with light guards at the elbows and knees.
• Herad arranged for the weapons laboratory to manufacture the armor components, then went to watch the Heavy Energy Cannon’s final assembly.

Herad and his companions watched the Heavy Energy Cannon’s construction and tested it aboard the Obsidian Warship. The cannon’s first combat shot barely affected Argus the Unmaker, so Herad stopped the test and abandoned efforts to break through his defenses.

• Herad, Alleria, and Sylvanas watched arcane golems assemble the enormous mithril-lined Heavy Energy Cannon.
• The arcane golems transported the completed cannon to the Obsidian Warship’s weapons testing range, where Herad’s team prepared a vacuum test.
• Herad discovered the cannon consumed far more energy than predicted, then ordered it fired at the obsidian wall; the shot shook the warship but caused no major problems.
• After reinforcing the cannon’s energy pathways, the Obsidian Warship emerged from behind the Satellite and fired at Argus the Unmaker.
• The first shot struck Argus the Unmaker’s forehead without penetrating his skin, and his reactivated defensive barrier blocked the next shot.
• Herad ordered the Central Control System to stop testing and abandon attempts to break through Argus the Unmaker’s defenses.

Herad tested the Obsidian Warship’s Heavy Energy Cannon by destroying major demon settlements on a fel planet, then left after collecting combat data. He planned to kill Kil'jaeden and disrupt the Burning Legion, while hoping to eliminate Sargeras as well.

• The Obsidian Warship’s attacks devastated demon settlements, and demons fled or fired ineffective Fel Anti-Aircraft Cannons at the ship.
• Herad dismissed the demons’ return fire and limited the bombardment to settlements rather than trying to destroy the planet or every demon.
• The demon ruler watched the attacks through beholders and prepared to teleport away, unable to understand why the enemy did not invade.
• Herad departed after testing the Heavy Energy Cannon, believing that killing Kil'jaeden would throw the Burning Legion into chaos.
• Herad also hoped to kill Sargeras, whom he regarded as the chief culprit behind the Burning Crusade.

Alleria and Sylvanas witnessed the Heavy Energy Cannon devastate the Demons' gathering place, while Herad considered designs for a larger warship and its future super Energy Cannon. Their debate over ship shapes left Herad favoring a longsword-like design.

• The Heavy Energy Cannon reduced the Demons' gathering place to a vast lake of magma, astonishing Alleria and Sylvanas.
• Herad compared the cannon's power with world-ending weapons and concluded that a true strategic weapon would require a much larger warship.
• Herad reviewed the Super Magic Computer's proposed hull shapes and preferred a cylinder or rectangle to support a longer Energy Cannon.
• Alleria and Sylvanas rejected the cylinder as stick-like and the rectangle as brick-like, then suggested an extremely slender arrow shape.
• Herad noticed the proportions of Alleria's sulfuron longsword and decided that a longsword-like hull shape might work better.

Herad designed a 20,000-meter Obsidian Warship intended to kill Titans, while Alleria and Sylvanas admired its shape and size. He realized building it would require mining a billion tons of obsidian in the deep sea and considered using the Tidestone to make the work bearable.

• Herad refined his Starship design into a short-sword-shaped model, and Alleria approved it before resuming her game with Sylvanas.
• Alleria and Sylvanas saw the simulated design’s 20,000-meter length and were stunned, while Herad explained that the ship needed to be enormous to kill a Titan.
• Herad estimated that completing the Obsidian Warship would require recasting a hundred existing ships and mining at least a billion tons of obsidian.
• Herad dreaded mining in the oppressive deep sea and concluded that the Tidestone could part the waters above Nazjatar and create a comfortable mining area.
• Herad recalled the power of the Pillars of Creation, including the Tidestone’s ability to control water and the Tear of Elune’s corruption of Ysera.

Herad arrived in Azsuna to investigate the Tidestone and entered the ruins of Nar'thalas Academy, now inhabited by cursed Night Elf ghosts. He reached the academy’s underground structure, where his search for clues could begin.

• Herad reviewed how Prince Farondis had planned to use the Tidestone to close the portal, but Vandros betrayed him and Queen Azshara’s magic cursed Azsuna’s residents.
• Herad surveyed Azsuna’s territories, noting that Blue Dragons, Night Elf ghosts, and the Watchers had coexisted there for over ten thousand years.
• Herad teleported down to Nar'thalas Academy and found that its ghostly inhabitants let him pass without interference.
• Herad used spatial magic to bypass the stairs and reached the passage into the academy’s main underground structure.

Herad searched Nar'thalas Academy and found the broken Tidestone, then repaired its shattered stone ring. He left the academy with the artifact restored enough to hold together, while Elune gave no answer to his plea to help the ghosts.

• Herad searched the academy's left passage and followed the increasing damage toward the room where he suspected the Tidestone lay.
• Herad used Mage Hand to retrieve glowing stone fragments and assembled them into a rough ring, then found the artifact's glowing sphere in a nearby corner.
• Herad gathered the Tidestone's pieces and teleported to the Obsidian Warship, avoiding the ghosts who might destroy the artifact in anger.
• Herad prayed to Elune to help the cursed ghosts, but she did not respond, and he accepted that she would not intervene.
• Herad aligned the Tidestone's energy and reconnected its broken stone ring so the fragments would stay together.

Herad used the Tidestone to clear seawater from a vast area, then chose an underwater volcano as the starting point for mining the obsidian he needed for the billion-ton Obsidian Warship. Queen Azshara learned that the disaster had killed her beloved red-shelled crab and berated her subordinates for failing to guard it.

• Herad used the Tidestone to push seawater away from the Obsidian Warship, exposing a broad stretch of seabed.
• Herad let the giant sea beasts pass through the water walls, and they fell to their deaths on the dry seabed.
• The Naga saw that Queen Azshara's red-shelled crab had been smashed, and its remains became food for seabed creatures.
• Herad avoided landing on the coral-covered seabed and steered the Obsidian Warship toward an underwater volcano.
• Herad discovered that the volcano contained abundant obsidian and began mining it for his grand plan.
• Queen Azshara berated her subordinates for failing to guard the area and indirectly causing her crab's death.

Queen Azshara learned that the waterless zone was nearly six hundred kilometers across and concluded that the Tidestone had created it. She assembled a large force of Naga sea witches and sent them advancing toward the zone.

• Queen Azshara ordered Vashj to watch the Naga scouts as they measured the waterless zone.
• The scouts measured the zone at nearly six hundred kilometers across, close to Vashj's estimate.
• Queen Azshara concluded that the Tidestone had caused the zone and regretted leaving the artifact in Azsuna's Magic Academy.
• Queen Azshara summoned her Naga sea witches and prepared to attack the waterless zone.
• More than a hundred Naga sea witches mounted seahorses and advanced toward the zone.