Naaru

Velen and Khadgar were both very curious about what the "savior" mentioned by A'dal would be like. When the griffons from Honor Hold descended from the sky, both of them were drawn to an angel within the group—a beautiful being from the myths of the Church of the Holy Light, often mentioned in their religious texts.

Now, a real angel was appearing before their eyes, and the shock it brought them was unimaginable.

Prophet Velen's long eyebrows twitched slightly. The Naaru, who had been helping the Draenei for twenty thousand years, were pure Holy Light beings, and he felt the same power from this angel.

He couldn't help but wonder, was the savior the Naaru spoke of an angel?

The griffons descended from the sky, and the riders and passengers dismounted.

Khadgar, however, first saw someone else among the group whom he never expected.

"Krasus, is that you?" Khadgar rubbed his eyes. "Good heavens, am I not seeing things?"

This mage of the Kirin Tor Council was exactly the same as before, with a head full of long silver hair, and as always, a neat little mustache, looking elegant and refined.

"Khadgar!" Krasus jumped off the griffon and strode towards the seemingly old, but actually still in his prime, Dalaran mage. He embraced Khadgar with delight, then sized him up. Although he knew this meeting would happen, he still felt the wonder of fate when it occurred.

"It's been over a decade since we last met, hasn't it?" Krasus sighed.

"Yes, almost fifteen years. You haven't changed a bit, still the same as ever," Khadgar said with emotion. The last time he saw Krasus and the others was when he returned to Lordaeron with Lord Lothar after the end of the First War and the destruction of the Kingdom of Azeroth by the Orcs at a Kirin Tor meeting in Dalaran. He was only seventeen years old then, but already looked like this old man.

Seeing Krasus still handsome and dashing as ever, he couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness. Normal people all experience youth, but he had almost none. At seventeen, he had already become an old man.

Krasus also sighed, "Time flies, fifteen years ago I would never have imagined we would meet again in this world."

He looked at Khadgar, the Dalaran mage they had sent to be Guardian Medivh's apprentice. More than a decade had passed, and Khadgar's strength had become unfathomable. Perhaps no mage in Dalaran today was more powerful than him. Even Krasus felt inferior.

"You've improved again, Khadgar!"

Their reunion made the atmosphere of the expedition team and the others in Shattrath City very harmonious.

Aiden took the lead and walked towards Prophet Velen. He immediately saw the elderly prophet in the crowd. This was a respectable elder, and he bowed to him, saying, "Hello, Prophet! I am Aiden, head of the Valoran Federation. I come on behalf of the Alliance to discuss important matters with you!"

"Hello, Your Excellency," Velen returned the bow. He saw the angel, who had attracted attention from the beginning, standing behind Aiden, and realized that this young man was the leader. He couldn't help but wonder if this was the "savior" A'dal spoke of.

Years ago, Velen had foreseen the future through the Ata'mal Crystal given to him by the Naaru, and these futures had been confirmed. So he believed that the Naaru's judgment should be correct.

"Come, come with me, Aiden. Let's go inside and talk!" Velen didn't stand on ceremony and directly led them into Shattrath City. "There is a being who wishes to communicate with you."

He instructed Garrison Commander Mardrad to take the griffon riders to rest, and then personally led Aiden and the others to the Holy Light Plaza.

"Is it the Naaru?" Aiden asked. As his griffon approached Shattrath City, he sensed a group of Holy Light beings he was very familiar with in the city, just like Sidaar and the other Naaru he had encountered in the Twisting Nether. He was sure that the Naaru in the city had also sensed his arrival, because he felt their welcome and joy.

"Yes, A'dal, the leader of the Naaru, asked me to invite you," Velen replied. He now understood that this young leader had already been in contact with the Naaru. No wonder the Naaru knew of their arrival.

Aiden had a voice in his heart guiding him forward, calling him "Savior." He didn't understand what this title referred to. In the Twisting Nether, the Naaru led by Sidaar called him "The One Who Breaks the Norms," "The Reformer," and "The Guide," while A'dal now called him "Savior." All the heroes of Valoran unconditionally obeyed him and were even willing to sacrifice themselves to protect him. This was definitely not just because he was the one who signed the contract.

Aiden couldn't figure out how he had left such an impression on them. He realized that the world he was in was not as simple as he thought. Those who knew were tight-lipped about it, and more secrets were hidden in the fog, waiting for him to uncover them.

Walking through the long corridor, he saw most of the Draenei rebuilding their homes, and many warriors were training hard in the square. They had suffered too much, and now they were trying to protect their people with their own strength.

Then he saw the huge Naaru suspended in the central hall of the Holy Light Plaza—it seemed unaffected by gravity, floating quietly above several raised platforms, radiating a gentle and pure Holy Light.

"You have come."

"Come quickly."

"We have been waiting for a long time."

Three consecutive voices entered Aiden's mind.

He stepped forward and looked up at the Naaru: "A'dal, did you know I was coming?"

"My intuition told me you would come."

"As you can see, it is as accurate as ever."

"Sidaar has told me about the events in the Twisting Nether."

"Welcome back."

"This is the reunion we have been waiting for."

A'dal's telepathic message was almost uninterrupted, expressing his meaning clearly in an instant.

Aiden asked, "Then, do we have the same goals?"

He was here to take away the Alliance army in Outland and try to persuade the Draenei to join the Alliance in advance. The Draenei worshiped the Naaru as gods, so to convince Prophet Velen and the other Draenei, he obviously had to convince the Naaru first.

"Of course."

"Whether it is the near-term goal, or the distant future."

"The Naaru will stand on your side."

"We will always be so."

Aiden was immediately encouraged, as if he had an endless Holy Light army standing behind him. "But, why me? To be honest, I don't understand. I feel like you see me, but you are associating me with a completely different person. I don't think I am that great, nor that noble and invincible. In the past three years, especially in the past year, I have become more and more confused. Are you really sure that I am the savior, or the guide, or whatever?"

Aiden felt that besides being from Earth, there was nothing else special about him. Although many of the messages in the game coincided with Azeroth, there were too many beings who could peek into the secrets of time and know the past and future. Not to mention the Bronze Dragons, even the Naaru were very good at it. Even someone as strange as Ner'zhul could glimpse fragments of the future. Foresight was really not a heaven-defying ability.

And the savior, reformer, and guide that the Naaru spoke of all seemed to point to Aiden himself. Why did they think so?

Also, what Kylan once said, that it was not they who chose Aiden, but Aiden who chose them. Could it be that Aiden could find Runeterra himself?

Aiden had more than once felt that these guys must have misunderstood him—for example, mistaking him for someone else, someone they thought truly possessed such power.

"There is no mistake."

"Sidaar told you the password."

"When you unlock the password, all doubts will be answered."

"We all believe that you are that person."

"Password?" Aiden recalled that in the Twisting Nether, when Sargeras tried to forcibly merge his soul, the Naaru passed on to him a supreme Holy Light power, which mentioned a "password." It was this power that allowed him to stubbornly guard his original heart and not merge with Sargeras.

He tried hard to recall those passwords: they seemed to be mysterious runes somewhat similar to the composition of the Naaru's bodies, but he couldn't recognize what they were at all, feeling like the garbled characters he saw on a webpage, completely incomprehensible.

Aiden asked, "Is that your language or something else? Can you just tell me directly?"

A'dal replied, "Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't—these codes, like us Naaru, have existed in our consciousness since our birth. For billions of years, we have synthesized the codes from all Naaru and put them together to study. We have also referred to the languages and writings of countless worlds and civilizations, but it remains a mystery to us."

"Then how do you know I can decipher the code?" Aiden asked, somewhat amused. Since these runes are innate to the Naaru, and they themselves don't know their meaning, how would an outsider like him know?

"Intuition."

"We believe in intuition."

"We believe you are the one who can decipher the code."

A'dal's answer was not at all hesitant, and it was clear that he and the other Naaru were very confident that their intuition would not be wrong. This is their way of survival, a different kind of instinct.

Just as Xi'daer would wait somewhere in the Twisting Nether for Aiden, who was banished to the void by the power of the Sands of Time, his intuition told him that Aiden would appear there.

And then Aiden really appeared.

Again with the intuition—Aiden had a headache; he should have guessed that A'dal would answer like that.

He really couldn't think of how to unlock the secrets behind these runes, so he could only put it aside for now. He decided to get back to the main topic: "So, A'dal, what do you think of our operation this time?"

"As I just said, the Naaru will stand on your side. Your will shall be our goal."

Aiden Wei really didn't know how to answer. He hesitated for a moment, then decided to act according to his own ideas: "Then please bring your ship over and let us act as soon as possible! The Burning Legion's threat is imminent; the sooner we return, the better."

"I gave Mu'ru the order three days ago."

"The Exodar is on its way here."

"It will arrive soon."

A'dal transmitted.

Aiden opened his mouth, speechless. As expected, the Naaru's intuition was still too difficult to understand…

—

Back at the resting place, Aiden stopped Quinn and Kayle, staring at them as he asked, "The Naaru have already answered my questions, although I'm still confused—but I want to know, how does Valoran define me?"

Quinn said, "You should ask Lady Kayle, Commander!"

Aiden turned to Kayle: "Kayle, you won't pass the buck again, will you?"

Kayle said softly, "If you really want to know, I can tell you."

"Very much so! Honestly, this question has been bothering me for a long time!"

Kayle said, "All the heroes of Valoran know about this. It was at a meeting more than nine hundred years ago."

She mentioned the Void rifts that constantly appeared in Runeterra in the past, and the way that Zilean proposed to save Valoran at that meeting: to stop time, freeze everything, and let Valoran's life maintain a state of hibernation for more than nine hundred years.

"Zilean believed that more than nine hundred years later, a powerful being would help Valoran escape the crisis. We have worked hard for more than nine hundred years for this, until the 'Wandering Caretaker' Bard returned to Valoran, claiming to have found that powerful being."

Aiden pointed at himself and asked, "So the person this Wandering Caretaker found is me?"

"Yes."

"Where did he see that I was powerful?" Aiden asked, amused, then he asked again, "Who is this Wandering Caretaker? I've never heard of him before. Last time in the Twisting Nether, I had a chance to summon him, but I used it to summon the Void heroes. But from the name, it sounds very powerful."

When Aiden traveled through time, the hero Bard had not yet been announced, so he naturally didn't know about him.

Quinn explained, "He is a celestial traveler, traversing different planes. He once left some myths and legends in Valoran, but he rarely appears. Most people don't know there is such a hero, and no one knows how powerful he is. Perhaps he can be compared to a god!"

"Then I seem to have missed something." Aiden felt a little regretful, a hero comparable to a god—that would definitely be more powerful than the six Void heroes he summoned.

Kayle said, "You shouldn't be obsessed with your current strength. Think about the abilities Zilean taught you, and your doubts may be answered."

"Time?" Aiden's eyes lit up. Kayle's words almost immediately awakened him—Zilean said that his time travel was not because of the Valoran heroes' summoning, but the result of the combined efforts of several forces. Including Zilean, Murozond, and himself. Even he himself was the one who connected Zilean and Murozond.

Based on this, he immediately imagined the context of the matter:

When he became a true powerhouse in the future, he contacted the Eternal Dragon King and the Guardian of Time, two heroes from different worlds, and asked them to summon the past self, who was still on Earth, into the Emerald Dream of Azeroth.

"But why would I do this?" Aiden was even more puzzled by this inference. It was as contradictory as Nozdormu traveling to the future to kill Murozond. The future Aiden was already strong enough, so why summon the past self? To make his time travel more reasonable?

He couldn't figure it out. Perhaps one doubt had been resolved, but more questions swarmed in.

Aiden sighed and put these troublesome questions aside, knowing that they would all be answered in the future.

—

Corki's plane flew over the barren Hellfire Peninsula and Zangar Marsh, and then the scenery in front of them suddenly changed: Grom and Saurfang were both very surprised by the scene in front of them. Although the current Nagrand is very different from the fertile prairie they remembered, at least it still maintains its natural appearance, and it doesn't seem to have been polluted by fel energy or flooded by seawater.

The Zangar Marsh they had just passed, geographically speaking, was part of the former Terokkar Forest plus the northern half of Nagrand. The former Terokkar Forest was the residence of most Draenei, and Grom remembered that they had eliminated the Draenei's last resistance in Shattrath City.

"Saurfang, check the map, how much further?" Grom urged. He felt a little nervous, an emotion that he hadn't felt for many years—perhaps the last time was when his wife Golka was giving birth? Approaching his hometown, he felt a sense of homesickness, not knowing how to face these tribesmen they had once abandoned.

"According to our speed, it should be about half an hour." Saurfang was also very nervous. Not only was Grom's son in Nagrand, but his son, Dranosh, was also here. In the last battle of Icecrown Citadel, he personally killed his son, who had become a death knight. After that, for a long time, he dreamed of his son in his hometown of Draenor turning into a undead and questioning him with bloody tears why he did that.

This was also one of the reasons why he had fought for this mission from the other orcs.

He wanted to protect Little Dranosh and make sure he didn't go down that tragic path.

He only had this one son.

It has been almost twenty years since they separated, Varok thought. Now, Little Saurfang should have already completed his adulthood ceremony and personally hunted a Talbuk ram, a real man, right?

Nagrand has a unique landscape. After Draenor shattered, many wonders appeared. In addition to the primordial arcane torrents in the sky, many fragments on the ground also floated up against the laws of nature, turning into floating islands of various sizes. Even though the plane was still in the sky, they could see small pieces of land on the left and right, with small patches of grass and vegetation. Some even had trees on them, and some even had water flowing out of nowhere, forming natural hanging waterfalls, which looked extremely unique and spectacular.

Corki looked through the window and saw a large lake below, and next to the lake was a cluster of buildings with a distinctly orcish style. He asked, "Gentlemen, see if this place is the destination marked on the map?"