"Thud."
Dick fell to the ground. Jaina's fall had broken him completely. After Dick dug out the Silver Hand, the Warhammer that had been hovering overhead slowly descended, finally floating behind him.
But he did not even look back.
Exhaustion, pain, despair-all those negative emotions welled up in his heart. Yet when he saw Jaina's mangled corpse lying on the ground, Dick stubbornly gritted his teeth and struggled to pick up the Silver Hand.
He held the sturdy silver fist out before him and approached the battle one step at a time.
When the Order Power Tyr had left in the fist came into contact with the Faceless One's Old God aura, it erupted once more. But after twenty thousand years of depletion, all it could do was make Guardian Bors feel a scorching heat and force the undead to keep retreating.
Specks of light glimmered on the fist, forming a pale yellow halo around Dick. Like the Statue of Liberty holding her torch aloft, he drove evil back wherever he went.
Dick knelt on one knee beside Jaina's body. He did not even dare look at her wound, which had nearly torn the Young Lady's body in half. His body trembled, and the earth before him slowly grew wet.
Those were tears. They ran down Dick's soot-blackened face, leaving two unmistakable tracks. He reached out with his right hand, trying to lift the Young Lady into his arms, but the moment he set down the Silver Hand, the creatures surrounding him surged forward.
Helpless, Dick had to raise the Silver Hand again.
He finally understood. Without anyone wielding it, this fist was merely a work of art. Only contact with a living being who believed in order would unleash the mighty power within.
Dick looked left and right before his gaze finally settled on his severed left arm. He hesitated, then tore away the clothing loosely bandaging it and tried to secure the Silver Hand to the wound.
After several minutes of work, he finally bound the silver fist to his left arm with the clothing. Only then did he bend down and cradle the Young Lady's still-warm corpse in his arms. Looking at the Warhammer floating before him, he seemed to hear Kel'Thuzad's wild laughter coming from the crypt.
The Faceless One Pos turned and charged back toward the main hall, while the undead remained standing a short distance from Dick.
Kel'Thuzad had probably already subdued Xal'atath. Zakajz must have sensed the danger and summoned his servant back to save him.
Dick watched Pos leave with cold eyes. A crazed smile slowly spread across his face, until it covered his whole face. But when his gaze swept over Jaina, who looked as though she had fallen asleep in his arms, that smile turned into the deepest sorrow.
"Young Lady, let's go home."
Dick murmured to himself. At the same time, his right hand tightened around the handle of the Silver Hand Warhammer, and he gave it a gentle tug.
"Boom."
As though an earthquake had struck, the entire palace began to shake. The ground split, and magma hidden beneath it erupted. Most terrifying of all, the moment Dick obtained both the Warhammer and the Silver Hand, the stone walls supporting the ceiling of this underground cavern began to crack as well.
What lay above those stone walls?
Hundreds of thousands of tons of lake water!
Beyond the lake were rings of mountains clustered together.
The self-destruct mechanism left by the Titans erupted from the inside out. Once the magma and lake water unleashed their full force, they would be enough to destroy the entire valley. The collapsing mountains and rocks would also seal this place completely. Unless the former Earth-Warder appeared again, no one could hope to clear it out.
Even Zakajz, the mightiest servant of the Old Gods, could only perish before this self-destruct mechanism the Titans had forged using the immense power of nature. Even if he survived by chance,
he could only accept the miserable fate of being sealed away again. Only Dick, at the moment he picked up the Silver Hand Warhammer, was transported with Jaina in his arms to a peak outside the valley in a flash of shattering starlight.
He witnessed the mysterious valley disappear with his own eyes.
Explosive magma erupted from underground. Upon touching the lake, it burst into steam of a terrifying temperature. The surrounding rings of mountains fell one after another, like deliberately toppled dominoes. But that was not the end. After the magma and mountains came the collapse of the entire valley, leaving that place a pitch-black hollow.
Like a scar upon the earth.
The Titans must have hollowed out the ground beneath the crypt. Once the temple floor collapsed, the crushing weight of the mountains and lake water pressed everything deeper underground.
It was gone. Amid the earth's roar and a rising mushroom cloud, everything disappeared.
Dick let out a breath. His whole body had gone numb. He struggled to sit cross-legged on the ground, without the slightest joy that revenge should have brought. He still held Jaina in his arms, while the Silver Hand Warhammer and Strom'kar lay discarded beside him. No matter how fine the artifacts were, they could not compare to the girl in his arms.
How he wished the Young Lady would leap out of his arms with flushed cheeks as she used to, even give him a couple of slaps. Unfortunately...
Ding... Lingering on in Desperation-complete!
The notification roused Dick from his deepest grief. He rubbed his eyes, looking as though he had yet to wake up fully. He clearly remembered that the quest "Lingering on in Desperation" required him to keep the Young Lady Jaina alive to complete it. But now...
"Clink!"
While Dick stared in shock, a clear shattering sound came from around Jaina's body. He lowered his head and saw her nearly torn-apart body enveloped in an orange-yellow glow. Then both the light and Jaina turned a strange black and white. Six seconds later, a completely unharmed Jaina appeared in Dick's arms, without even a tear in her long white dress.
At the sight, a familiar mage skill sprang into Dick's mind.
"Time Warp!"
At that moment, the ecstatic Dick even wanted to slap himself.
Damn it! How could I have forgotten that broken arcane mage skill, the godlike ability that could return a mage to a previously set state, supposedly even averting death!
Antonidas had been the first Archmage in the game's history to research Time Magic. He might very well have invented this skill! As his most valued apprentice, Jaina could have received a Time Warp spell personally cast by the old mage, or a scroll containing the spell.
That could hardly have been easier!
"Thank goodness!... This... this is wonderful!"
Dick looked incoherently at Jaina, who was completely unharmed and merely asleep. Choking back sobs, he hugged her tightly, like a miser who had found treasure and feared it would sprout legs and run away.
But Dick's movements were too forceful. Jaina frowned in his arms and opened her eyes in confusion. Then she realized someone was holding her. The Young Lady's face instantly turned scarlet, and she unleashed all her mana without a second thought.
It was as though a purple flower of energy had bloomed around Jaina. How could Dick, already utterly spent, possibly withstand an Archmage's Arcane Explosion!
He was sent flying on the spot. Yet even in the final moment before he lost consciousness, his filthy, comical face remained covered in smiles.
As long as you're all right...
You're back... This is wonderful!
The next moment, Dick's world went black. He could no longer even hear Jaina's startled cry.
Darkness. Utter darkness.
Dick opened his eyes in that darkness. The first thing he saw was a glimmer streaking through it.
Then a meteor shower trailing shimmering starlight appeared in the dark river, illuminating the entire dark space.
As though watching a surreal documentary, Dick's vision swiftly moved toward an utterly unremarkable planet among those countless worlds. He saw giants walking across the land with wooden staffs in hand. Each step carried them over a mountain range. Even the seas were no insurmountable obstacle before them.
As they walked, they casually scattered specks of light. Where those lights landed, the first tree appeared, followed by the earliest life that originated in the sea.
They split open the skies and cast the rampaging Ancient Elements into other planes. They fought those bizarre-looking monsters, creatures whose mere appearance could make one's entire body crawl, defeating and sealing them away.
Once they had fashioned a complete, comfortable cradle of life, the giants strode toward the stars again, leaving the world they had reshaped with their own hands.
The images ended at that moment. Then the starlight filling the sky gathered before Dick, forming a phantom of starlight whose precise features were indistinguishable, but whose transparent bodily structure was visible.
The moment he appeared, a gentle voice reached Dick's ears.
"In mortal eyes, the world is unique. But in truth, when the river of time flows past a planet, countless branches are born in that world. We call them 'timelines.'"
"Every timeline is different. They arise at every moment and perish at every moment. Pursuing the theory of 'timelines' further, I believe that all timelines are, in fact, among the countless possible futures of a world's prime plane."
"Order and chaos are forever opposed. The Pantheon, on the side of order, has already failed once. But we still have new hope: changing the fates of these worlds of order under the Pantheon. Once enough fates have been changed, the fate of this universe will eventually change."
"Timewalker No. 1029304, this is also why we granted you a second life, and the mission you bear."
The giant phantom, radiating starlight all over, sat cross-legged opposite Dick. He extended a hand, and the planetary structure of Azeroth soon appeared before him as a projection.
Dick said nothing. He sat upright where he was, propping up his chin and blinking repeatedly. Finally, looking at the starlight projection of Azeroth that Norgannon's phantom had placed before him, he reached out and tapped the glowing sphere.
Ding... Main quest unlocked. Help the Pantheon construct a timeline world that develops differently from the main world. Quest requirement: Reach over 70% World Divergence. Quest time limit: 100 years. Current World Divergence: 2%. Class Template loaded. Reach 10% Divergence to unlock a new feature.
"Wow!"
Dick let out an exclamation. He had imagined many possible reasons for coming to this world, but when the real answer was revealed, he realized his imagination had still been far too limited.
"So I'm not a stowaway through space and time after all... What does this count as? Transmigrating by official decree?"
The young man grinned and chuckled. Since he had the Pantheon backing him, he no longer needed to furtively conceal himself. Besides, this main quest suited Dick's tastes quite well. Turning an entire world around sounded impressive, didn't it?
But once he calmed down, Dick suddenly felt somewhat lost. How exactly was he supposed to turn the entire world around?