Make Azeroth breathtaking

Tanya, annoyed, gently placed Onyxia, whose face she had rubbed swollen, back at her feet. She pulled a device and a bunch of tools from her mechanical assistant's stomach, deployed some drones as sentries, activated the camouflage system, and began fiddling around in the shadow of a rock. Onyxia, bored, stood there for a while before trotting back to Nidhogg, climbing into the cockpit, activating the camouflage system, and taking to the skies.

————————————————A few minutes later————————————————

"It's nothing but ogres..."

Although Nidhogg originated from Onyxia, after being modified by Nefarian and further upgraded by the mad tinkerers of Ratchet and the fanatical sorcerers of the Ancient Literature Society, it was no longer the same. Its speed and strength were unimaginable to ordinary dragons! With the aid of the wind core propulsion system, Onyxia quickly traversed most of the mountain range and headed towards higher peaks. Soon, she discovered the first traces of intelligent... well, perhaps not so intelligent beings—ogres!

Onyxia, who thought that the presence of ogres would mean the presence of other intelligent beings, remembered Tanis's warning and became cautious. She rode Nidhogg around the ogre camp several times but did not find the 'enemy of dragons' that Tanis had mentioned.

"That woman is spreading alarmist rumors again."

Although she knew that Tannis wouldn't make things up without reason, Onyxia couldn't help but complain when she didn't find what she was looking for. Just as she was about to head back, some strange bumps on the ground caught her attention.

These are...

Recalling some basic operations from the instruction manual, Onyxia slightly adjusted the angle of Nidhogg's head, focused her gaze, and brought the protrusions on the ground closer to her eyes. Instantly, the true forms of those things were clearly presented before her eyes.

"Dragon bones? And there are gnaw marks on them?? Could it be? No wonder Father told us that there are no more black dragons in the Outer Realms!"

Looking at the remains of the dragons on the ground, clearly from unnatural deaths, Onyxia felt a strange, faint sense of nausea, along with a surge of anger—an anger she had never experienced before, a anger at the brutal killing of her own kind.

Then, she discovered more dead dragon carcasses. Unlike the dragon bones that had been devoured and discarded on the ground, these black dragon corpses, whose flesh was still intact, were strung on the sharp cliffs of Blade's Edge Mountain, like dried meat being dried in the wind.

Before Onyxia could figure out what to do with the black dragon remains that looked like food reserves, a heavy, rumbling sound reached her ears. She looked in the direction of the sound and saw clouds of dust rising from the distant mountains.

Without needing to focus her gaze, Onyxia could already see the Cyclops walking among the Blade's Edge Mountains. She could see its rock-like brown skin, its thick wrists strong enough to snap the neck of an ordinary young dragon, and the dust rising from the ground with each stomp of its feet.

“That’s Goron.”

Tanis's voice suddenly rang in Onyxia's ear, startling her.

"Are you spying on me?"

“Don’t forget that Nidhogg is basically Ratchet technology. Isn’t it only natural that I can monitor your movements and share your vision? Speaking of which, you really did run into Gronn. Tsk tsk tsk, I thought you wouldn’t see them.”

Is this kind of thing rare?

"It should be now, but according to Varok, before Draenor became this fragmented, it was a relatively common thing,"

"Was this kind of thing common in Outland before?"

Even though Onyxia, as the black dragon princess, was quite knowledgeable, she still found this somewhat unbelievable in the context of Azeroth. After all, giants similar to Gronn existed in Azeroth, but these giants usually lived in seclusion on the edges of the world. Yet, in Outland, Gronn were relatively common?

"Anyway, this is something those old orcs wrote down to prevent them from forgetting their past life in Draenor—which is now Outland. In addition, the information the Draenei gave us also shows that before the collapse of Outland, Gronn were not exactly rare. In fact, there were even more terrifying Magoron than Gronn. Your old man actually came to Outland to make a living with so many monsters. He truly deserves to be called the mad dragon king."

"Can I defeat it?"

As Onyxia watched Gronn walk step by step to the bodies of the dead dragons, reaching out to take a dragon carcass to eat, she suddenly spoke.

"100%".

"So--"

Onyxia was invigorated by Tanys's reply. She flapped her wings and prepared to dive and bombard the Gronn. However, before she could adjust her posture, Tanys's furious words reached her ears.

"Stop right now! You can't fight it right now!"

"Didn't you say my win rate was 100%?"

A big question mark popped into Onyxia's mind.

"I can't get any repair parts right now! What if your victory is a Pyrrhic one and I have nowhere to get it fixed!"

"...So what you mean by a 100% victory—including a Pyrrhic victory?"

"Of course, that includes my engineering creations. Although they are powerful, they are not invincible yet—communications on my end will be restored soon, you can come back now."

While communicating with Onyxia, Tanis connected the last wire.

IV. Blade's Edge Skyguard

However, although Tannis managed to complete the interdimensional communication and establish contact with Ratchet, the information she received from Haruny was not good news...

"Even if I anchor my device to the coordinates of Shattrath City, I still can't teleport freely?"

When she heard the news, Tennys was completely dumbfounded.

"Yes, Great Tinker Tanis, this is determined by the spatial structure of Outland. You might not believe it, but although Outland has gradually stabilized after the Cataclysm, the stability of the portals from Outland to Azeroth is still much higher than the stability of the portals between Outland regions. If possible, I suggest you return to Ratchet first, and then go to Shattrath again through the portal."

"I don't have enough energy; cross-dimensional communication is already at its limit—can I fly to Shattrath City in Nidhogg?"

"No, Great Tinker, the straight-line distance between Blade's Edge Mountains and Terokkar Forest is too far, and the journey is fraught with danger..."

Haruni thought for a few seconds and then offered a new suggestion.

“I can give you the communication frequency of the Shattrath Skyguard stationed in Blade's Edge Mountains. You can visit them first, and then follow their supply line to the Mana Forge in the Kingdom of Quel'Thalas in Netherstorm. There, there is a stable portal to Shattrath.”

Tanis thought about it and realized that she couldn't think of a better solution either.

"That's the only way."

———————————— Half an hour later, Blade's Edge Mountain Sky Base ————————————

"Huh, huh-"

With the sound of Nidhogg's wings flapping and stirring up the air, the huge black dragon slowly landed on the Skyguard's first flight deck, which had already been cleared. Tanis, wearing a full flight suit, jumped off the dragon's back and walked to the Blood Elf Lieutenant of the Skyguard who had come to greet her, shaking hands with him in a friendly manner.

"Ratchet, the Great Tinker, Tannis."

"Lieutenant Palazzi of the Blade's Edge Skyguard, Kingdom of Quel'Thalas."

"Onyxia, the Black Dragon Princess."

"Forehead....."

Seeing the adorable little girl being frantically squeezed and kneaded by Tannis, the blood elf lieutenant's eye twitched, but he chose to ignore it.

"Shattrath City has already informed us of the details. The next supply should arrive in ten days. At that time, Grand Tinker, you can go to Netherstorm with the supply team. In the meantime, you can stay here with us. Although the Sky Base in Blade's Edge Mountains isn't very luxurious, the facilities are quite complete."

Thank you.

Tanis nodded and looked at the ray-like creature flying around in the sky.

"Those are?"

"These combat mounts are used to deal with low-altitude and complex terrain situations. As you can see, the terrain of Blade's Edge Mountain is incredibly complex. Even experienced pilots will only suffer a fatal crash if they can't control the speed of their aircraft. However, Void Rays are extremely sensitive to obstacles and almost never crash into cliffs. They also have a decent speed and are easy to tame, so we use them extensively. The only drawback is that these creatures consume more than 50% more energy than regular single-person aircraft."

"Energy consumption? They're living organisms!"

"Um... I'm used to it. When we first arrived in Outland, we blood elves developed a habit of calculating whether it was more worthwhile to convert the food we collected into colorless crystals for absorption or to eat it. Void Rays, which only eat high-energy food, are quite wasteful after a quick calculation."

After saying this, Palazzi made a gesture of invitation.

“Come on, Tannis the Great Tinker, I’ll take you to see our supreme commander here.”

————————————Base Command Tower——————————————————

"It's an honor to meet you, Tannis the Great Tinker. I've heard about your exploits from Garrison Commander Haruni. I am Drama, the commander of Blade's Edge Sky Base. I apologize, but since I just led a bunch of greenhorns to bombard a Burning Legion base, the welcoming ceremony will have to be kept simple."

A tall Draenei greeted Tannis at the tower entrance. Unlike Parachi, who was dressed in military uniform, Draenes was clearly wearing standard Skyguard armor. Although at first glance the armor seemed so thin that it could be pierced by a slightly well-made sword, under Tannis's engineering glasses, it was surrounded by two evenly distributed layers of energy.

"Shield-type armor?"

Tennys's unexpected words made Dellamar laugh.

“That’s right. After all, our main area of ​​combat is the sky, and wearing heavy armor would be counterproductive. This kind of armor is not only lightweight but also has amazing defensive capabilities, which perfectly suits our characteristics.”

"But charging this kind of armor must be very difficult, right?"

“It’s not difficult. Colorless crystals can handle it. You may not know this, but this armor is a product of our Draenei crystal technology, your colorless crystals, Tannis the Great Tinker, and the arcane knowledge of the Kingdom of Quel'Thalas. Before we knew about your colorless crystals, we could hardly imagine that energy could be compressed to such a small size and still remain so stable.”

"Did you also have the technology to compress energy blocks before?"

"Yes, but even if we Draenei do our best, the energy blocks we compress are all cubes with a volume of at least one meter in length, width, and height, and their stability is extremely low. They're fine as explosives, but as an energy source, they're just asking for trouble. The Voidlings are better at this. Although their compressed energy blocks are about the same size as ours, their stability is much better. However, they're still not suitable as a mobile energy source."

"Ethereals? What are they?"

For some reason, upon hearing the name of this race, Tannis felt an instinctive aversion from her fragmented memories, as if she had encountered her worst enemy.

"They do everything: buying and selling goods, stealing, excavating cultural relics, smuggling, selling intelligence, and making money."

“…”

As Dramah introduced the Voidlings, the fragments of memories in Tannis's mind gradually became clearer. Various aspects of the Voidlings began to integrate into her brain, finally allowing her to understand why she had a strange aversion to them.

"So...we're rivals?"

V. The Arrival of the Kali Birds

"The Star Realm Consortium..."

Lying on the not-so-soft bed in the Skyguard base dormitory, Tannis rested her hands behind her head, her brow furrowing slightly as she pondered this enormous power she had unintentionally overlooked—or rather, hadn't 'remembered'. Just now, she had subtly inquired about the Astral Consortium with Drama and Parach, and the result left her with a bad feeling. Because the Astral Consortium's influence spanned several worlds—or rather, planets—they had now become the main supplier and buyer for several major powers in Outland. Clearly, if Ratchet wanted to expand its commercial influence into the unfamiliar lands of Outland, the Astral Consortium was an unavoidable obstacle.

"While Shattrath has agreed to establish a semi-permanent portal with Ratchet, its military value far outweighs its commercial value. Shattrath likely isn't particularly interested in receiving supplies from Azeroth anytime soon. I could arguably claim Quel'Thalas as a savior, but to use that as leverage is utterly foolish... To legitimately establish a foothold in the Outland market, we either need to find something the Voidlings can't provide, but we can, and that Outland desperately needs, as a starting point; or we need to find a race overlooked by the Voidlings that has a profound influence on Outland..."

As Tanis pondered these thoughts, she drifted off to sleep.

............

"Waaaaah— Waaaaah—!"

The sudden, piercing alarm woke Tannis from her dream. She opened her eyes, instinctively put on her combat gear in a few quick movements, adjusted her mechanical assistant to preheat mode, and banished the strange, shadowy raven she had dreamt of. She pushed open the door and rushed into the corridor, where she ran right into Parazi.

"Tannis, the great tinkerer, the flock of Kali birds is attacking. The situation is quite dangerous. Please do not leave the room. Our base's defenses are sufficient to take them down."

"Kali bird?"

"A large bird native to Outland, with a ferocious nature, it likes to attack caravans on the road, and its reproduction rate is ridiculously fast. The Skyguard was mainly set up to target them. However, recently the Burning Legion has shown signs of resurgence in Outland, so we have also taken on the task of suppressing the Burning Legion's forward positions."

After quickly explaining the duties of the Kali Bird and the Sky Guard to Tannis, Parazi hurriedly took his leave. Watching Parazi's retreating figure, Tannis pondered for a few seconds, then gently tapped the mechanical assistant, releasing two small reconnaissance drones.

"Let me see what this Kali bird looks like..."

————————————Guard Elevator————————————————

In this vast area of ​​approximately 800 square meters, several squads of Sky Guards were already in position. Some rode Void Rays, some wore backpack-like armor with nozzles, and some sat in groups of four on a flying vehicle inlaid with crystal patterns. What they all had in common was that they held a standard weapon that looked like a gun but had a crystal muzzle.

At the very front of these lines, Drama sat atop a Void Ray that was larger than the others. His hawk-like pupils, hidden behind his goggles, watched the watch on his raised left wrist, silently estimating the time it would take for the anti-aircraft gun to fully recharge. On the tower to the side of the plaza, sentries using telescopic equipment were observing the movements of the Kallis and loudly reporting the enemy's location, distance, and approximate number.

"Southeast! Quantity: Twelve! Distance: Three thousand meters!!!"