Make Azeroth breathtaking

"Did the Nephalem come first, and then the Sanctuary?"

"Yes, and initially, the Nephalem didn't show much power until the establishment of the Sanctuary—after the Sanctuary was established, the Nephalem associated with it grew at a speed neither side expected—their training method was combat, killing enemies, and a portion of the essence of enemies killed by the Nephalem would be devoured by the Nephalem..."

As he said this, Isendra glanced at his apprentice with a subtle look, while M and Z exchanged bewildered glances.

"Doesn't this sound like a game character leveling up?"

Ignoring M and Z's complaints, Isendra continued.

"Initially, this power was confined to the Sanctuary—a power given to their children by angels and demons for self-defense. However, Lilith, for revenge—or perhaps for a deeper purpose? We cannot know—used the Worldstone to completely 'untie' the Nephalem's shackles. After that, the Nephalem's power rapidly expanded until even the High Heavens and Hell considered them a threat. And then, just as Blizzard has recorded."

After saying this, the great mage gently touched the air, and instantly, a series of ripples spread out.

"The Sanctuary world, in the end, exists for the Nephalem. The beings that created Sanctuary were ultimately expelled by Sanctuary—even Tyrael was only accepted by Sanctuary after abandoning his identity as the High God and stepping into the mortal realm—and then, they actually created a Sanctuary without 'Nephalem.' Isn't that ridiculous?"

"Master, after all, they initially dragged us into the fragments of various 'destruction times' and made us connect them, with the aim of using us 'protagonists' to find the true historical essence of all worlds, and then replicate a composite world that surpasses any of our three worlds—however, after this plan was interrupted, the most suitable source of information for these fragments to perfect their own world is..."

"The Records of Earth!"

M continued Li Min's words.

"Therefore, a huge loophole has appeared in this inlaid 'Sanctuary World'—the Sanctuary World was created because of the appearance of Nephalem, but there are not many 'Nephalem' here—but interestingly, due to the manipulation of the World Consciousness of World of Warcraft, there are already many empty shells that are close to Nephalem, and these empty shells will become the most crucial link in quickly resolving these three pitiful fragments."

"The player's character!"

M and Z were both startled. Then, they exchanged a glance and thought of a question.

"But why are we here merely appearing as your mercenaries? My role over there is no less significant."

"You were brought here by our special qualities, so of course you can only exist by depending on us. Moreover, in a broader sense, Nephalem are everyone in the Sanctuary—even the dying beggar on the street is a Nephalem."

"So, does that mean we're already Nephalem...?"

"of course."

"But can a mere empty shell of Nephalem really become a crucial link?"

"Why do you think they're just empty shells?"

"Doesn't this universe almost universally reject all beings without souls? We were able to get here by exploiting a loophole."

"Yes, theoretically, that's correct."

A strange smile appeared on Isendra's face. In Li Min's memory, her mentor had only smiled like that when he was telling her the story of the Seven Heroes.

"However, some things never continue as theory suggests."

——————————Three Temples——————————————————————

“…”

Sargeras placed his hands on the armrests of his chair, peering into the timeline of the universe he and his two companions had created together, and also into the warriors they had sent into the endless battlefield. In the eyes of the Destroyer, endless threads of fate were linked and then broken, just like the data lines flowing through the network world when he was still a physical entity in World of Warcraft.

"They have not escaped the predetermined fate we have arranged for them here."

Having already assimilated part of his soul and become increasingly closer to the real one—even feeling that he had surpassed his 'original' self in some ways—Sargeras slightly opened his eyes after confirming that even with the aid of 'World of Warcraft,' the invaders would still have to play by the rules set by the three of them.

“Fate will be out of balance, Sargeras.”

Amon, whose form flickered in and out of existence, spoke in a deep voice. He was currently engaged in a psionic contest with Kerrigan, who was in a certain dimension. Since Kerrigan was a complete Xel'Naga, Amon, who had only partially repaired himself, was only able to maintain a stalemate by taking advantage of the terrain of this universe.

“Even if the plan is not fully completed, we have already glimpsed the destiny of our time, Eamon.”

Diablo guided the lingering vengeful spirits with a cruel yet gleeful expression—because of the three, it was the most adept at controlling souls, and the souls it lured were almost all filled with one or more excessive negative emotions. Therefore, it, having arrived in this world last, was actually the one that recovered the best.

“The will of Heaven can never be fully fathomed; the fact that the other world can send puppets of those ‘players’ is proof of that.”

Amon's figure suddenly paused for a moment, then he withdrew from his ethereal form. In the surging River Styx, a wave rose up without warning, surging towards the starry sky. Above the wave, Kerrigan's psionic energy almost completely outlined her body.

"In the rules of the Sanctuary, the power of the soul is the most powerful force. Without a soul, one is merely an empty shell. An empty shell is powerless in the rules of the Sanctuary, and its predetermined fate cannot be altered. And we are the fate of this universe."

Diablo conjured a ball of flame, instantly calming the churning River Styx. Clearly, although Kerrigan had defeated the incomplete Amon in the psychic contest, she was unable to escape the River Styx, a sanctuary composed of over 100,000 souls, for the time being.

"Our failures all stem from 'fate beyond our predetermined destiny'—Sargeras, your path to destruction was ended by mortals; Diablo, you burned the High Heavens, yet perished in the Nephalem; and before me, too, appears the Xel'Naga, beyond destiny."

Looking at his two colleagues, who were brimming with confidence, Amon inexplicably felt a headache coming on. It wasn't that he couldn't understand this way of thinking; in some ways, as the theoretically last Xel'Naga, his thinking should be more transcendent than Sargeras, who was merely born from a planet, or Diablo, whose order was even more fragmented than the broken order itself. However, because this Amon had been active for a long time before its fragments arrived and had established connections with certain things, it had to allow this mortal aspect to enter its body rather than purifying and fusing it. This caused its thinking to unconsciously incorporate mortal logic.

"Beyond predetermined fate? My fate was manipulated by the Pantheon and the Void, your fate ultimately couldn't escape the hands of the Xel'Naga, and Diablo's fate was intertwined with Sanctuary—predetermined fate? After reading the records of this world, I realized that I have never escaped fate! Ironically! As a fragment—I have the right to break free from fate!"

Sargeras involuntarily gripped the armrest of his chair, his mind filled with rage—the fall of Sargeras in patch 7.3—though not in the true canonical timeline, it was the most likely scenario of his defeat before the emergence of the outlier timeline of Tanis. The Destroyer had reread it countless times—Illidan, Velen, Magni, Khadgar… these mortals embraced their fates without fear, transcending their own. And what about himself? His own fate was nothing but a farce! The Legion that was supposed to incinerate everything had ultimately accomplished nothing! He thought he had shattered the Pantheon—but in the end, the Pantheon rose again, and he!!

Seeing the World Destroyer consumed by rage, Amon, who had intended to fight Kerrigan again, had a glint in his eyes. For some reason, a sentence flashed through his mind.

Born in the world of Warcraft—or rather, the human online world—and barely surviving on fragments of information, have we truly "broken free" from fate?

——————————————Earth, Player Community——————————————————

"So boring..."

"Look at the UN, the link between World of Warcraft and their timeline will be severed in less than eight hours. Those who traveled here will have to go home no matter how unwilling they are. If we can't resolve this in this short time, we really won't be able to..."

"There's nothing we can do if we can't handle it—but at least there won't be any problems in the short term. After all, those three created their own universe and developed it; they shouldn't be able to get here anytime soon... right?"

"In the short term, I think they might come running as soon as those time travelers leave! They're basically ghosts from the online world, so coming back is easy for them, right? At that point, no one will be able to stop them!"

"The combined number of reborn individuals and awakened individuals should be enough? Roughly?"

"It's tough, really tough. If it were possible, those three should have been wiped out long ago—the fact that they're still alive and kicking means they're difficult to deal with—now we can only pray that our characters are strong enough to do a lot of work—if we can wipe out those things, I don't want any compensation, I don't care if my account is gone!"

"That account of yours contains a rare, discontinued item. Losing it would be a huge loss!"

"Like I said, if we lose, the losses will be even greater... Sigh, I really want to go and fight there myself."

"There's no way around it, they only accept souls—the problem is we can't all kill ourselves and run off into World of Warcraft, can we? Besides, dying there might mean real death—what kind of Fourth Scourge is it if you can only live once..."

"That makes sense... Hey, do you think we could find a way to let our characters ascend to immortality so we can command them remotely from here?"

"Your idea is even more outrageous than artificial intelligence—the scientists at the Awakened group looked at it and it's not even true intelligence, it's almost there... It doesn't run smoothly when you write ternary code into it."

"What if? After all, even World of Warcraft has spoken up; maybe they have a solution..."

"A solution? Open the Dark Portal and link it there?"

"..."

When these words were spoken, the QQ group suddenly fell silent. After a long while, one player spoke uncertainly.

"Wait a minute, I remember the people from Azeroth saying... initially, their method was to place a puppet, synchronize it using the Dark Portal, and then control it remotely?"

"Yeah...you don't really think there's a way to replicate it, do you? The Dark Portal connects two worlds because their world lines resonate. How can two completely unrelated worlds be linked?"

"You can't say they're completely unrelated. At least those guys over there were born here, no problem, and their souls came from our Earth, no problem! They're related no matter how you look at it, right?"

"...That makes sense, but how can we operate in less than half a day? There's no room for maneuver."

"Yeah... there's no room for maneuver at all."

And so, the players returned to their mundane chatter, unaware that in World of Warcraft, the door that looked like a texture was slowly but resolutely transforming into something resembling an obelisk. And somewhere in the world created by Sargeras and his companions, several such obelisks were beginning to take shape.

It's like the entrance to a Greater Rift in Diablo.

85. Playing games within games

"Eat my corrosive jet!"

Ichi the Infernal sat on his mechanical device, rotating the nozzle, laughing maniacally as he sprayed streams of deadly corrosive liquid at the approaching figures—clad in legion armor and wielding fel-powered swords, who were possibly players. This invention of the sorcerer, driven by a force field, spread into a dark green mist that could cover an area of ​​hundreds of meters, enveloping all the attacking enemies. Soon, the faint hissing sound of metal—or something worse—being corroded could be heard from within the mist, and on the screen, the energy reaction points representing the targets were rapidly disappearing.

"Tannis, intercept them quickly!"

As the attackers disappeared, some invisible particles—undetectable even by ordinary scanners—rose into the sky along with the returning souls. However, Tannis and Iggy, who were prepared, quickly intercepted a portion of these particles, stuffed them into a makeshift container, and then converted them into the spectrum provided by ** and sent them into deep space—although they didn't know where these messages would be sent, they simply sent them!

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to let them continue to exist, Tannis the Great Tinker, Iggy the Great Sorcerer.”

Beside Iggy, the third person to join Tannis and the others... well, the three of them—Garrosh—sat in the cockpit of Getter Robo, watching with a conflicted expression as the approaching corrupted souls were being treated like... well, maybe it was a farming operation? In the orcish warlord's view, these corrupted souls were likely beyond saving; it would be better to find a way to break their cycle and send them to their rest, thus delaying the inevitable improvement of the world's rules brought about by this cycle. However, the two strongest engineers in Azeroth who had joined him didn't seem to think the same way.

"According to that guy, this should be very effective—your Getter Robo also has a way to recover these things, could you lend a hand?"

I still think...

Garrosh's eye twitched slightly, as if he wanted to offer a rebuttal and state his own argument, but Dranosh, sitting inside Getter Robo 2, spoke first.

"Our time is running out, Garrosh. Don't forget why we took this risky tactic instead of playing it safe—it's because if we can't resolve this issue all at once before our timeline is disconnected from that 'World of Warcraft,' we'll have to revert to our world. At that point, this undisturbed fragment of Sargeras will inevitably grow back into 'Sargeras'—or even a more powerful Sargeras. Given Sargeras's nature, if one Sargeras rises, it means that Sargeras from 'all timelines' will rise again. If that happens, then in the foreseeable future, the Eternal War will inevitably break out again in our world—or even more fiercely sweep across the entire universe. What's even more terrifying is that, assuming they control 'World of Warcraft,' then our fate is almost self-evident. I know you think this tactic is a gamble from every angle, but now we're all in, and the best solution is—to keep gambling!"

"Phew... okay."

Garrosh, somewhat persuaded, rubbed his chin in frustration and began to control Getter Robo to try to collect the particles in the air. However, just as Getter Robo raised his hand, a series of abnormal spatial fluctuation data from who-knows-where caught his attention.

"Nazgorin! I don't quite understand this data!"

After glancing at the parameters on the screen, Garrosh generously passed the question to the trio's professional—well, although he was indeed the highest-ranking member of the trio, sadly, his academic background... well, let's just laugh it off.

"Don't even mention you, I don't understand it either. These parameters don't follow the usual spatial rules!"

Nazgorin answered loudly to his old brother.

"Look at area D3!"

Just as the two were discussing this parameter, Dranosh's voice came through the communicator.

"Area D3?"

Garrosh quickly swiped his screen, focusing on the D3 area Draenorsh had mentioned. The scene that appeared before him stunned even this battle-hardened veteran.

"Where did this obelisk come from?"

----------------Earth----------------------

"......"

After returning home from the infiltration center, Old D lay on his bed, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep. He sat up, staring blankly at the computer in front of him, then picked up his phone and tapped a few times, staring at the countdown on it in a daze.

"I still can't sleep."

Knowing that all he could do now, besides chatting, was sleep and wait for the results, Old D muttered something, jumped out of bed, walked to the dedicated computer, swiped his ID card, restarted the computer, logged into his Blizzard account, and then stared at it blankly—his character had been borrowed by World of Warcraft, and apart from the occasional emails proving that his character was still fighting, he really didn't know any more details about his character's situation.

'I don't think my situation counts as game addiction.'

After giving a self-deprecating laugh, Old D slumped back onto his bed, leaving his phone on. He just lay there blankly, staring at the ceiling, his mind a complete void, not even knowing what he was thinking. He tried to sleep, but found he still couldn't fall asleep.

Just as Old D was feeling rather aimless, his room suddenly brightened up, and then, with a look of 'WTF, is this thing broken?' on his face, a figure appeared on his computer screen—it was his character in battle!

"The link has been established?"

Old D didn't have time to think about anything and rushed to the computer with lightning speed to try to operate it. However, he was frustrated to find that the computer seemed to be frozen and could not be operated at all.