Streak Kill

What in the name of the Light was this?! Kurdran Wildhammer, a dwarf who'd personally sent more red dragons to the great forge in the sky than most folks had hot meals, never in his wildest, most ale-fueled dreams thought he'd have to face an opponent of this caliber. This wasn't just a dragon; this was a living, breathing, ancient god of scales and fire!

A young dragon, barely a thousand years old, could easily flatten a town like a pancake. A seasoned dragon, under ten thousand years old, could wipe a human army off the map faster than a goblin could count his teeth. But an ancient dragon, one that had seen ten thousand years, perhaps even more? The answer was simple, terrifying, and gut-wrenching: enough to obliterate an entire kingdom, leaving nothing but a smoking crater and a bad memory.

The colossal dragon was still a distant speck, a crimson stain against the sky, but its roar had already torn through the heavens. The surging sound waves blasted the clouds into oblivion, leaving gaping holes in the sky, and caused the very air around it to shimmer and distort, like looking through a heat haze. When those crimson wings, vast as a storm front, spread wide, even the solid earth beneath Kurdran's feet gave a nervous shudder. It was coming down like a falling comet, a living, scaled meteor, heading straight for the Lordaeron forces who were foolishly trying to block the remnants of the Horde from breaking out.

Okay, here comes the million-dollar question, the one that keeps generals up at night: How do you stop a raging army of crazy orcs? The textbook answer: form a solid, unyielding infantry formation, a wall of steel and muscle. Now, how do you save more lives under the breath of an ancient dragon, a creature that could turn an army into a barbecue? The textbook answer: disperse the formation, turn that neat square into a chaotic skirmish line, scatter like startled rabbits.

In every other situation, Alexandros Mograine, the stern, unyielding commander of the Scarlet Crusade, knew exactly how to deal with it. He had a playbook for every scenario. Unfortunately, faced with such a truly terrible, utterly unprecedented situation, even a warrior as brave and skilled as Mograine was at a complete loss, his mind a blank slate. He was between a rock and a very, very hard place, with a dragon breathing down his neck.

It wasn't like he hadn't received Duke's urgent magical message, a frantic whisper through the arcane. Oh, he'd gotten it, alright. But a hundred thousand soldiers don't just pack up their picnic baskets and go home. In the roaring chaos of the battlefield, it would take more than ten minutes for the message to even reach the front lines, and by then, it would be too late. Moreover, if the soldiers, who were fighting tooth and nail and actually doing well, were suddenly told to disperse, most of them would probably look at him like he'd grown a second head and refuse point-blank.

Blocking the orc army's retreat route and killing as many orcs as possible was a task that King Terenas himself had taken upon his shoulders, a grim decree. King Terenas hated the orcs with a passion that burned hotter than dragon fire, especially after they'd burned the entire Silverpine Forest to ashes. Although most of the fire-breathing and burning were done by the flamethrowers of Duke's FFF Regiment – a detail Terenas conveniently overlooked – there would be no need for such brutal weapons without the orcs... Well, in the final analysis, the orcs were going to die, and that was that. And as the core of the Alliance, Lordaeron had to play a more important role, to pull its weight, instead of letting Duke hog all the credit, which, let's be honest, he was already doing.

As a result, the giant dragon that appeared from nowhere, a creature of ancient power, chose the Legion of Lordaeron as its first target, a truly unfortunate turn of events. Even though Mograine had sounded the horn to disperse the battle, screaming himself hoarse, the dragon still arrived too quickly, a crimson blur of scales and fury.

When the dragon flew by at high speed, a living, scaled hurricane, the sheer wind pressure generated by the flapping of its colossal wings alone stirred up a terrible storm in half of the Lordaeron army, blowing all the people nearby head over heels, sending them tumbling and rolling around like bowling pins. Each huge crossbow and catapult, those massive war machines that originally required two horses to pull and at least ten engineers to operate, now became children's toys, easily swatted aside and broken apart by the dragon's casual claws. A catapult was caught in mid-air by the dragon's talons, then thrown down wantonly, a giant, wooden missile. The wooden car disintegrated directly in the air, turning into countless fragments like leaves caught in a storm, raining down on the Lordaeron soldiers' heads with a sickening crackling sound.

Suddenly, a small but very eye-catching blue-purple light shimmered into existence in the sky above the Lordaeron Legion, a beacon of hope. That was the light of a portal opening, and an old wizard, with a majestic white beard that flowed like a waterfall and hair like spun moonlight, stepped out of the portal. The next moment, he slowly lowered his body, landing gracefully on a huge block of ice that rose from the ground, a personal frosty platform. In the Alliance, there were only two mages with such an aura, such raw, undeniable power! The one who was a master of frost, who could freeze the very air, was naturally Antonidas, the strongest mage in all of Dalaran, a living legend.

The old wizard leaned on the icy staff in his hand, its tip glowing with a cold light, and bellowed to the sky. His angry voice, amplified by magic, immediately echoed through the air, shaking the very clouds: "Taranis! Answer me, why do you also want to fall, to serve these despicable green bugs?! Have you lost your mind?!"

"Forgive me – Alexstrasza is in their hands, and I have no choice," a voice boomed back, filled with a clear, heartbreaking sadness that seemed to ripple through the air. It was Taranis, the ancient red dragon, and his vertical pupils, usually burning with fire, were now filled with a profound sorrow.

After saying that, the ancient dragon Taranis spread out its huge wings, a wingspan of at least thirty or forty meters, almost hovering in the air, a vast, crimson shadow. A faint crimson light shone through its chest, then spread from its chest to its slender neck, and then, from its terrifying dragon mouth, lined with interlocking, razor-sharp teeth, a fiery dragon breath, a torrent of pure, incinerating flame, spurted out. The dragon's breath was so huge, so vast, that it felt like the entire sky had turned into a gigantic fire cloud, pressing heavily on the entire Scarlet Crusade Legion, threatening to consume them all.

Almost at the same time, a giant ice tornado, a swirling vortex of frigid fury with a diameter of more than 100 meters, rolled up without warning. The cold air quickly condensed into palm-sized ice spikes, sharp as daggers, which rose straight into the sky in the tornado, spiraling upwards. They collided violently with the dragon's breath fire, which seemed like the very flames of hell, in mid-air, a clash of elemental titans.

At that moment, the entire sky seemed to be flashing with a chaotic, blinding glow, a terrifying mixture of white and red. The violent energy reaction stirred up a huge energy turbulence, a chaotic maelstrom that completely covered the entire northern area of the battlefield, making it a no-man's-land. Thousands of people near Antonidas were instantly swept away by the terrifying energy turbulence and died, their bodies ripped apart by the sheer force. This was not the end; the violent energy continued to spread in all directions, a ripple of destruction. With the battle between the man and the dragon as the epicenter, time seemed to stand still for a second, a moment of suspended animation, and then time resumed flowing in the next second. A powerful shock wave, strong enough to knock over anyone standing within a thousand meters, began to sweep across the entire battlefield, a silent, invisible wave of destruction.

Well, the battle involving hundreds of thousands of people, a grand, strategic conflict, was completely messed up, thrown into utter chaos by these two guys who were completely cheating, playing by their own rules. This was not a confrontation of equal levels at all; it was a clash of titans, a force of nature meeting a force of magic. Mortals had no chance of getting involved in a battle of this level; they were just collateral damage.

At this precise, chaotic moment, Duke arrived, like a hero stepping onto a stage.

"We're late," Alleria muttered, biting her lip, her face etched with frustration.

"No, it's not too late," Duke corrected, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Or rather, it's just right!" He handed a particularly thick arrow to Alleria and another, equally hefty one, to Vereesa.

"Um?" Alleria quirked an eyebrow, clearly confused.

"Can you shoot these two arrows into Taranis's eyelids?" Duke asked, his voice calm, almost casual.

"What's the use of this?" Alleria expressed doubt, her brow furrowed. "Even the dragon's eyes have a layer of eye membrane that's harder than steel. Our bows and arrows can't hurt it, not even if they hit it dead on!"

"I didn't say I wanted to kill Taranis," Duke replied, a hint of exasperation in his voice. In truth, Duke was more confused than he let on. He didn't dare say it out loud, but in the history he knew, Taranistrasz should have died in the Grim Batol Fortress, controlled by the Dragonmaw Clan, because he was too weak. So, why was Taranis still alive and kicking, showing up to serve as the Horde's unexpected rescuer? It was a major plot twist that Duke hadn't accounted for.

But the work still needed to be done. Duke couldn't just sit idly by and watch the Alliance army get beaten to a pulp.

"Vereesa, you shoot first," Duke instructed.

"Okay!" Silver-haired Vereesa replied, her eyes narrowing with focus. She drew her bow, the string humming, and nocked her arrow. Just like her sister, Vereesa had a heroic, almost ethereal posture when drawing the bow. The Creator had endowed the high elves with the most beautiful appearance, and long battles had trained the Windrunner sisters to have unparalleled heroism on the battlefield, a deadly grace.

A strong wind, almost as if answering her call, blew, and Vereesa's wind arrow flew out, a blur of green magic. The arrow's flight path was so light, so impossibly delicate, like a piece of rag floating on the wind. Taranis, locked in a fierce, world-shaking battle with Antonidas, did not notice the arrow until it exploded less than half a meter away from his eye, emitting a dazzling, blinding flash of light.

"Flash bomb?" Antonidas muttered, momentarily distracted, his eyes widening in surprise.