The Catastrophic Blast

The Catastrophic Blast That Ruined Everyone's Day

The apocalyptic shock wave that absolutely demolished the earth didn't just shake the kingdom—it grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and gave it the beating of several lifetimes, steamrolling across the landscape with the subtlety of a drunken ogre and the finesse of a catapult loaded with rotten vegetables. The tremors didn't stop at Silvermoon City; they kept going like an overenthusiastic messenger who forgot when to shut up.

At that precise moment, every elf in the entire kingdom experienced what could only be described as the collective bowel-loosening terror of witnessing the world's most spectacular temper tantrum. This wasn't your garden-variety earthquake—this was the kind of earth-shattering catastrophe that made grown elven warriors weep openly and question their life choices.

The sensation was pure, undiluted despair, as if the very fabric of reality had decided to throw itself off a cliff while screaming profanities in ancient draconic.

Starting from Eversong Forest, those magnificent century-old trees that had stood proudly along the mana veins suddenly found themselves playing the world's deadliest game of dominoes. Each towering giant, some reaching heights that made dragons crane their necks, got launched skyward with the enthusiasm of festival fireworks and the grace of a tavern brawl gone horribly wrong.

Sylvanas, caught in the middle of this botanical apocalypse, attempted to outrun the shockwave using every ounce of her legendary ranger speed. Her legs pumped faster than a goblin accountant counting coin during tax season.

Unfortunately for our intrepid ranger-general, she wasn't anywhere near the explosion's ground zero. Even more unfortunately, heroic speed becomes about as useful as a chocolate teapot when facing a blast wave that could flatten mountain trolls. The shockwave caught her mid-sprint, and she let out a grunt that would have made an orc blush before getting hurled into the nearest tree with enough force to rearrange her family tree.

Mid-flight, Sylvanas desperately tried to execute some fancy aerial acrobatics to avoid becoming tree decoration. Just as she was about to make intimate contact with centuries-old bark, the tree itself decided to join the flying circus and took off like a drunken gryphon.

The elves caught directly in the explosion's embrace were instantly transformed into very expensive fairy dust, while their more fortunate comrades outside the death zone found themselves participating in an impromptu interpretive dance called "Chaos and Confusion."

Elven bodies, built for grace rather than absorbing impacts that could flatten castle walls, proved spectacularly inadequate against the hurricane-force winds. Warriors who had faced down demons and dragons found themselves getting tossed around like rag dolls in a toddler's tantrum. Many took unscheduled flights through the air before crash-landing in various uncomfortable positions throughout the woodland real estate.

Chocobo feathers filled the sky like the world's most morbid snowstorm, while their terrified or dying screeches created a symphony that would have made banshees cover their ears in embarrassment.

Halduron Brightwing, having drawn the short straw in terms of proximity to ground zero, found himself launched into orbit by an air current with more enthusiasm than a goblin rocket and less safety considerations than a kobold mine.

Lor'themar Theron discovered that Lady Luck had not only abandoned him but had apparently kicked him in the ribs on her way out. A magical rune stone exploded directly in his face with the timing of a poorly told joke and the impact of divine retribution. Half his body went completely numb, and he found himself pinned beneath an arcane golem that had clearly given up on life.

Lor'themar was mentally composing his will and considering what embarrassing final words would be carved on his tombstone when salvation arrived in the form of Sylvanas. Lightning crackled from her fingertips, and the supposedly dead arcane puppet twitched its arm with all the enthusiasm of a corpse experiencing rigor mortis.

In the split second when the construct managed to lift itself a whopping thirty centimeters off the ground, Sylvanas moved with speed that would have made cheetahs weep with envy and extracted Lor'themar from his rocky prison.

Without missing a beat, she raised her hand and unleashed a gust of wind from her palm, catching Halduron mid-plummet. The poor ranger had been descending toward certain death with all the grace of a sack of potatoes dropped from a tower. Sylvanas' wind magic shoved him sideways, eliminating his date with the unforgiving ground and redirecting him toward a patch of mercifully soft grass that probably saved his dignity along with his bones.

Halduron lay there in a state that could charitably be described as "thoroughly used," spitting out enough dirt to start his own garden. But he knew perfectly well that without Sylvanas playing guardian angel, he would have become the forest floor's newest permanent decoration.

However, most of the other rangers didn't have the luxury of a heroic rescue service.

Some found themselves intimately acquainted with sharp branches that pierced through armor and flesh with surgical precision. Others took express flights of dozens of meters before crash-landing with enough force to turn stone to powder and bones to jelly. The unluckiest souls got caught in the magical explosions and found themselves divided into several distinctly separate pieces while still airborne, achieving the dubious honor of becoming corpses before gravity finished its work.

The absolutely horrifying condition of their men made both Halduron and Lor'themar realize just how close they had come to becoming forest fertilizer.

Halduron spat out the last of his involuntary soil meal and managed to croak, "Big sister, I owe you my life and probably my next three reincarnations."

Lor'themar, being more direct and possibly still in shock, seemed to have connected the dots regarding their survival odds. His face cycled through more colors than a mage's fireworks display. "If we somehow survive this clusterfuck of epic proportions, my life belongs to you from this day until the heat death of the universe."

Sylvanas gave him a look that could have frozen dragon breath, her eyes half-closed in that particular way that suggested she was calculating exactly how much trouble they were all in.

Lor'themar struggled to sit upright, gritted his teeth with the determination of a dwarf facing his last ale, and proceeded to relocate his dislocated leg bone with a wet crack that made nearby squirrels faint. "I've probably only got half my usual strength left, which means I'm operating at the combat effectiveness of a very determined house cat."

Halduron quickly inventoried his gear, then spoke through gritted teeth, "Big sister, when things get properly fucked—and they will—feel free to use my corpse as a shield or projectile weapon."

Sylvanas pursed her lips in that way that suggested she was mentally composing either battle plans or obituaries, then glanced at the handful of rangers who were limping toward them with the enthusiasm of the walking wounded. "Blow the horn, gather every elf who can still breathe without mechanical assistance, and we'll make our way back to whatever's left of civilization."

Hopefully, they could arrive before everything went completely to hell—which, given current circumstances, seemed to be happening at record speed.

The Eversong Forest, which had been a verdant paradise moments before, now looked as if some cosmic entity had decided to practice agriculture with a plow the size of a mountain range. The rich black earth beneath the trees had been churned up and scattered by the explosion with the thoroughness of a perfectionist farmer and the violence of a berserker's rampage. In mere heartbeats, a massive scar had been gouged across the forest landscape, and chaotic magical energy poured from the wound like blood from a giant's severed artery.

The surviving rangers couldn't even begin to imagine what fresh hell awaited them at Silvermoon City, located at the other end of the mana vein network.

The entire city of Silvermoon was currently enjoying a smoke bath that would have made dragons envious.

The mana vein explosion had obliterated most of the city with the efficiency of a perfectly timed siege engine and the subtlety of a meteor strike. The entire district stretching from the city gates to the Sunstrider Spire had been erased from existence—not just damaged or destroyed, but completely deleted from reality. Not a single structure over ground level remained to tell the tale of what had once stood there.

Every wall had surrendered to physics and collapsed in spectacular fashion. Magical artifacts continued exploding with the irregular timing of a goblin fireworks show run by amateurs with a death wish.

Every city block writhed in flames that danced with the enthusiasm of festival celebrants and the hunger of starving wolves. The once-flat streets had been transformed into a chaotic landscape of peaks and valleys, as if some giant child had been playing with the world's most expensive sandbox.

Screams echoed from every direction, creating a symphony of terror that stretched to the horizon and beyond.

Perhaps a master wizard with enough power and quick reflexes could have conjured protective barriers in time to avoid becoming street paste, but ordinary soldiers and civilians found themselves at the mercy of forces that cared nothing for their survival.

Sun King Anasterian and several members of the Silvermoon Parliament emerged from their shelters to discover that their magnificent city—the jewel of elven civilization just minutes before—had been transformed into the kind of rubble pile that archaeologists would spend centuries trying to understand. Collapsed ruins stretched in every direction, creating a landscape that looked like the aftermath of the world's most thorough tantrum.

"By the Sunwell's eternal light, what in the name of every god happened here?" the Sun King muttered, his voice carrying the bewilderment of someone who had just watched their entire world get fed through a meat grinder.

Suddenly, screams erupted from where the city gates used to exist, accompanied by the ominous glow of destructive magic that painted the smoke-filled air in shades of imminent doom.

That unmistakable combination meant only one thing: someone was having a very bad day, and it was getting worse by the second.

"AAAHHHHH—"

The screams carried clearly across several kilometers of devastation, growing louder and more numerous with each passing moment, creating an audio landscape that would have made demons applaud.

Anasterian wasn't some pampered peacetime ruler who had never seen real conflict. He had enough battle experience to recognize a coordinated attack when it was busy destroying his kingdom. The realization hit him with the force of a war hammer to the skull.

The increasingly powerful aura of darkness emanating from the former city gate location told him everything he needed to know about their uninvited guests—the Scourge had come calling, and they hadn't brought flowers.

Without sparing a thought for the countless victims still trapped in the burning city, the Sun King's expression hardened into something that could have cut glass. "Guards! Gather every soul who can hold a weapon without falling over and establish defensive positions around the palace! If they can't fight, they can at least serve as human shields!"

He barked orders for defensive preparations, but the Sun King himself had no intention of hiding behind palace walls. Instead, he strode away from the palace with his guards forming a protective escort that looked about as confident as sheep preparing to face wolves.

One of the Silvermoon councilors, his voice cracking with disbelief, called out, "Your Majesty, where in the blazes are you going during what appears to be the apocalypse?"

"The Sunwell."

The councilors' hearts collectively stopped as they realized the full implications of their king's choice.

In the royal mind, the Sunwell represented the absolute foundation of high elven civilization, while the hundreds of thousands of elves still breathing (barely) in Silvermoon City had apparently been relegated to the status of acceptable losses.

One particularly brave council member found the courage to voice what everyone was thinking: "Your Majesty, are you seriously going to abandon your subjects while they're being turned into undead chew toys?"

"I..." Anasterian began, but his response was interrupted by something that shocked him, his councilors, and his guards so thoroughly that several of them forgot to breathe.

A bridge of pure ice materialized from the direction of the former city gates, extending toward their location with the speed of striking lightning and the inevitability of death and taxes. The crystalline pathway reached them in mere heartbeats, defying every law of physics and common sense.

Before anyone could process what they were seeing, let alone react appropriately, a massive disk of ice carrying several distinctly ominous figures glided toward them with all the casual menace of predators who had already decided what they wanted for dinner.