Revilgaz

The goblin merchant, Revilgaz, whom Varian mentioned, walked into the hall under the watchful eyes of the Alliance leaders and the Guardian Dragons.

As the mastermind behind the notorious Blackwater Raiders, Revilgaz knew he couldn't afford to be timid in such a setting, or he would lose the initiative and fail to secure a satisfactory price.

The thought of his net worth shrinking by ninety percent steeled his resolve, preventing him from trembling before these most powerful and influential leaders of Azeroth.

As he entered, a young man with black hair, seated in the main position directly in front of him, spoke with a faint smile: "Mr. Revilgaz, I hear you have a very, very important message for me, one concerning the survival of Azeroth. Is that correct?"

Revilgaz cleared his throat twice, attempting to conceal his nervousness. He raised his head to look at Aiden, speaking with unprecedented slowness: "Yes, sir—you must be the renowned Head of the Valoran Federation, Premier Aiden, am I right?"

He paused after almost every word, the only way he could appear less flustered.

Thank goodness, he hadn't been so nervous as to misspeak or have his teeth chatter. However, his odd tone amused everyone present. Many looked at the goblin with mocking eyes.

"That's me," Aiden nodded.

"That's wonderful!" Revilgaz's speech finally became smoother. Having finally met the principal, he felt a surge of emotion, and his words flowed more freely. Thanks to the buyer's gentle demeanor, Revilgaz finally recovered from the terrifying presence of the leaders. He cleared his throat and said in a confident voice: "It's a pleasure to meet you, esteemed sir, but I must emphasize one point—this is a paid message. I lost tens of thousands of gold coins to obtain it, and years of business have been ruined. However, I believe this message is definitely more valuable than all my assets combined, because, without any exaggeration, it truly concerns the survival of Azeroth!"

Before Aiden could speak, King Varian said: "Come on, goblin, everyone here is well aware of your kind's habits—if this message truly concerns the survival of Azeroth, are you prepared to take it to the grave with us if we don't accept your blackmail?"

Revilgaz stiffened his neck, and the thought of the ninety percent of his wealth he had lost over the past six months made his eyes red as he shouted: "Since you understand us goblins, you should know our motto—money is everything! With money, anything is possible! Without money, we part ways!"

The leaders present exchanged glances. Varian simply wanted to put pressure on the goblin, as everyone knew that goblins were all, without exception, cunning merchants. These short, ugly green-skinned creatures were masters of deception, never willing to do unprofitable business, and the quality of their products was often subpar—such as the notorious 'Goblin Bomb,' which might be powerful but sometimes killed more allies than enemies due to its lack of safety. Unfortunately, such incidents had indeed occurred.

"Money is everything, I understand," Aiden didn't seem to care much about the goblin's identity or threats. He knew that Revilgaz was the leader of Booty Bay, and his influence was among the top echelons of goblin society. The Blackwater Raiders, the Steamwheedle Cartel, Venture Company, and the Bilgewater Cartel were all top forces in goblin society. Putting Revilgaz in human society, his hard power might not be as strong as the Kingdom of Stromgarde, but he was definitely much richer than the royal family of Gilneas—except now.

Aiden looked at Revilgaz and asked: "I believe you have important news, so what kind of price are you going to ask for?"

The other leaders looked at Aiden, somewhat astonished—wasn't this like offering himself up to the goblin's knife to be slaughtered? Goblins loved such easy targets!

This didn't seem like the shrewd and intelligent Head of the Valoran Federation they knew.

Hearing Aiden ask him to name his price, Revilgaz was so excited he wanted to jump up. He believed he was already halfway to success. His intuition was indeed correct—this Valoran Head was simply the most adorable person in Revilgaz's eyes! In his view, Aiden was radiating a golden light—the unique and lovely glow of gold coins!

"I have a list, I've already itemized a very reasonable price for this information!" Revilgaz took out a piece of paper from his pocket and excitedly handed it over.

Aiden was the first to see the list. It was divided into several items. The first was the value of the information itself. Because it concerned the survival of Azeroth, Revilgaz believed that every leader and king present should pay ten percent of all the property of their subjects to obtain this information. Revilgaz had roughly calculated the various human nations, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and other intelligent races in this list. Although there were dragons present, he wasn't so insane as to ask the Dragonflights to pay for this information—that would simply be courting death.

Then, the second major item was the property he had spent to obtain this information, some for bribery, some for purchasing, which had to be fully reimbursed.

The following listed a series of labor fees, mental damage fees, etc., because he was the helmsman of the Goblin Blackwater Company, his labor fees were, of course, very high.

Finally, after tallying all the items, the list came to a total of: 595351.44 gold coins, which he rounded up to a total of six hundred thousand gold coins!

Six hundred thousand gold coins—this was definitely a huge number.

Before the war, the total annual tax revenue of the most powerful human country, the Kingdom of Lordaeron, was less than one hundred thousand gold coins, and even the total annual tax revenue of all the intelligent races listed on this list was not enough to reach five hundred thousand gold coins. This was more than just a huge demand; it was simply treating everyone present as defenseless mobile gold vaults to 'withdraw' from!

It should be known that when Revilgaz's net worth was at its peak, all his assets combined would not exceed three hundred thousand gold coins!

He not only wanted to earn back his wealth but also wanted to obtain double the profit!

Aiden smiled upon seeing the list. He passed it to King Varian next to him, and the young King of Stormwind glanced at it, amused by the final figure. This had gone beyond the scope of anger due to extortion; it was simply absurd.

Revilgaz put on a confident look and said, "Esteemed Premier Aiden, this list is already the most basic quote. Of course, if you are willing to maintain a cooperative relationship with my company, considering your noble status and position, I can give you a discount—how about a 5% discount?"

Onyxia finally saw the list at this time. She glanced at the number at the end, which was seven or eight times more than all her property, and couldn't help but shout loudly: "Could you be any more shameless, goblin! Believe it or not, I'll arrest you, I have dozens of ways to make you reveal the stakes you're shamelessly using to blackmail us. Then we won't have to pay a single penny, just spend a little effort interrogating you!"

This was exactly what Revilgaz was most worried about—he wasn't afraid of dealing with civilized people, because civilized people were the easiest to bully. With the goblin's ability to argue black into white, as long as the other party didn't resort to thuggery, he would definitely gain the upper hand—because his asking price was itself an act of thuggery.

If the other party also resorted to thuggery, Revilgaz's fragile body could be completely crushed by anyone present. If Onyxia really got rough, Revilgaz would definitely reveal everything before being tortured.

"You can't do this—I'm here to negotiate! Not to fight!" Revilgaz shouted.

"That's perfect, I'm here to fight, not to negotiate!" Onyxia made no secret of her threat.

"Alright, alright, stop!" Aiden signaled both sides to stop arguing. He looked at Revilgaz and said, "Revilgaz, you should be more clear-headed, you know that no one will accept such a quote. More importantly, this list is meaningless to us."

Revilgaz retorted unhappily: "Is this your negotiating tactic? It doesn't work on us goblins anymore!"

Aiden smiled and shook his head: "I'm just stating a fact. Revilgaz, look at us, the leaders of various races, and the Guardian Dragons, all gathered here, are we just here to enjoy the snow in Northrend? If we can't win the Nexus War within three days, we will all be purged. Your message is clearly not about the Nexus War. Am I right?"

Revilgaz was stunned for a moment. He hadn't really investigated the reason for the gathering of the Northrend army. In his heart, he thought it was just a gathering to Crusade the Scourge or some enemy that wasn't much of a threat. Now it sounded like it wasn't the case?

"Secondly, I actually already know the message you brought. It's about Nefarian and Cho'gall going to Twilight Highlands and secretly researching chromatic dragons, right?" Aiden had already seen the answer from the other party's incredulous expression.

"You already knew?" Revilgaz couldn't help but blurt out.

Seeing Aiden nod, Revilgaz stood frozen in place, then he sat down on the ground and burst into tears: "Oh heavens, my gold coins, my property, have you left me just like that?"

The crowd looked at each other, unable to suppress their amusement. This goblin hadn't been too alarmed when the Black Dragon Princess threatened his life, but now he was crying and heartbroken because his message couldn't be sold for a good price.

Aiden didn't actually know from the start. In fact, it was after Revilgaz mentioned Twilight Highlands that he began to explore the timeline, wanting to know what had happened in the past. Although he couldn't foresee the future, the past had already been determined, and he could still see what had happened in the past using the ability of time rewind.

Then he saw the event of Nefarian taking his original orc and black dragon army from Blackwing Lair on Revilgaz's ship to Twilight Highlands.

Speaking of which, Rivendare's losses were also related to Aiden. Back then, in order to prevent Nefarian's army from falling into the hands of the Burning Legion and being transformed into demons to fight against them, he and Onyxia went to notify Nefarian in advance, telling him to take his people and leave. He didn't expect that Nefarian would eventually escape from danger on Rivendare's ship.

However, if Rivendare hadn't been so obsessed with getting rich, daring to ask even the black dragon Nefarian for an exorbitant price, he wouldn't have suffered so many losses. It was all because of his insatiable greed!

As Aiden continued to observe, he saw an unexpected discovery—Archbishop Benedictus of the Twilight's Hammer had been resurrected!

What surprised him even more was that the content of the meeting between Nefarian and the Twilight Archbishop could not be queried. Aiden knew that this was the result of being shielded by someone else who had mastered the secrets of time—just like he had shielded the future of this timeline two years ago.

The Bronze Dragonflight could be ruled out, because they had no need to do this. Then who was left was obvious—without a doubt, it was the Infinite Dragonflight that had gotten involved!

As for what Nefarian wanted to do, even if this part of the past was shielded, Aiden could guess—it was nothing more than creating the corpse of a true chromatic dragon, "Chromatus," and then using the vast arcane energy gathered in the Eye of Eternity to resurrect it. This had happened in many timelines, and Aiden didn't think he would be wrong.

This was definitely bad news, and it was something that only happened in this timeline.

Because of Aiden's arrival, the history of this world was completely different from other timelines. The "free script" truly showed a scene of freedom—or rather, in order to allow the chromatic dragon to be born, the system of the Warcraft world itself generated a hidden plot to increase the difficulty according to the existing conditions. All of this was because Aiden's destruction and promotion of history was too exaggerated—it was still the end of the 21st year after the Dark Portal, but what was happening was already the plot of six or seven years later!

The Nexus War had been brought forward by several years, and the process of creating Chromatus had also been brought forward by several years!

Then, would Deathwing suddenly emerge from the ground next, wanting to destroy the world with the Cataclysm?

"Very likely!" Aiden realized that he could not be limited to the historical process of other timelines. He originally thought that after solving the Nexus War, the Lich King's Scourge, the Ulduar crisis, and the Ahn'Qiraj Qiraji, he would have a long period of rest until the threat of Deathwing arrived. But now, it was very likely that Deathwing would also break out of the ground ahead of schedule!

He noted this down, and then said to Rivendare: "Rivendare, I'm afraid you'll have to pay for your losses yourself—but if you can provide some detailed information about Twilight Citadel, I can promise you that when supplying Twilight Citadel in the future, I can return those supplies and properties that can be confirmed as yours free of charge. Of course, this depends on the accuracy and value of the information you can provide. How about this proposal?"

Rivendare was stunned for a moment, and then immediately nodded vigorously: "Yes, yes, of course! I will definitely tell you everything I know! You are such a magnanimous person, Lord Aiden, it is so, so exciting to deal with you!"

Thinking of his current predicament, his nose twitched and tears welled up in his eyes.

Originally, he came here with the intention of recovering his capital and doubling his wealth, but who knew that the important information that he had spent so much effort and risked so much to obtain had already been mastered by the buyer? This was simply the most failed investment in Rivendare's life!

With the idea of minimizing losses, he told his sad story of the past six months in detail. Aiden had already learned about the previous part from the past timeline, but the part where Rivendare mentioned that three dragon heroes who participated in the War of the Shifting Sands, Caelestrasz, Mylindra and others, were captured and sent from Ahn'Qiraj to Twilight Citadel by Cho'gall to become experimental subjects for Nefarian's chromatic dragon research was something he didn't know.

Almost the moment this news was spoken by Rivendare, Aiden noticed a terrifying aura coming from Alexstrasza beside him.

She was the only Dragon Aspect present, and one of the strongest. Hearing that her son Caelestrasz had miraculously survived the War of the Shifting Sands, but unexpectedly fell into the hands of Nefarian's evil experiments, and was being subjected to inhumane torture, she couldn't help but recall the tragic memories of being enslaved by the Dragonmaw clan with the "Demon Soul" more than a decade ago—forced to mate and lay eggs, and her offspring were used as evil tools of war. This made her furious and almost burst out immediately.

Fortunately, Aiden noticed it quickly and first appeased the almost berserk Red Dragon Queen.

"Calm down, Queen Alexstrasza, we will find a way to rescue Caelestrasz and the other two dragon heroes of the War of the Shifting Sands! Listen to the end first, and then we will plan in detail! Acting rashly will only ruin things!" Aiden transmitted his mental power to her.

Alexstrasza breathed heavily, her chest rising and falling. Her face was flushed, obviously her emotions were intense. She bit her teeth hard to prevent herself from making any sound or taking any other action. However, the fact that her son was in danger continued to stimulate her fragile nerves.

Aiden isolated Alexstrasza's emotions and pressure, so that Rivendare in front did not notice anything unusual.

After this goblin mentioned that the three dragon heroes were enslaved, he continued: "At that time, I thought to myself, what is the leader of the Twilight's Hammer, the ogre with two heads named Cho'gall, going to do by sending three mortals here? I think these three people must be very important. My intuition tells me that there must be extremely valuable big news here—I tried every means to inquire about him, and finally bribed a goblin member of the Twilight's Hammer to find out what Nefarian's experiment was." Speaking of this, he seemed a little discouraged again, "Later, as you know, you already knew this news."

Rivendare shrugged helplessly and sighed: "Before, when I found out this news, I was still laughing in my heart at the high-level members of the Twilight's Hammer. No matter what method they used to network so many cult believers of various races, for us goblins, 'money can make the gods turn,' this is our supreme belief! So even if they have been reduced to cultists, the goblin members of the Twilight's Hammer still love money—as long as they love money, I have ways to make him betray the organization. Unfortunately, now I realize that my money has been spent in vain—if I had known, I should have escaped from that place directly when I bribed the prison guard! This is definitely the riskiest and most failed investment in my life!"

Hearing this, Aiden admired Rivendare a little. He actually bribed the enemy twice—the Blackrock orcs who guarded him were bribed and became his bodyguards; the goblin cultists of the Twilight's Hammer were bribed and provided him with important information about the chromatic dragon experiment!

This person deserves to be a top tycoon among goblins. The means of luring and bribing are simply superb!

It has to be said that Rivendare still couldn't hold back his temper and mistakenly told Aiden the most valuable news for free.

When sending Rivendare away, this goblin babbled and almost begged Aiden to be sure to take him with him after deciding to go to war with the Twilight's Hammer. Most of his property had been swallowed up by Nefarian, and now he had changed from a big tycoon to a pauper. He was counting on the army that was going to attack the Twilight's Hammer to win a great victory, so that he would have a chance to "recover his capital."

As soon as he left, the atmosphere in the conference room suddenly changed.

The shocking news that the three dragon heroes, Caelestrasz, Mylindra, and Krygosa, were enslaved and forced to join the chromatic dragon research had been hitting the hearts of the representatives of the three Dragon Aspects.

Alexstrasza said impatiently: "I will immediately go to rescue my son after the Nexus War, immediately!" Her eyes swept over everyone, and she would not allow anyone to object to this proposal—she could no longer endure the anger of her offspring being enslaved by others!

"We will also go to rescue Mylindra after this action." It was Ysondre, representing the green dragons, who spoke. In the Nightmare War, she was attacked by Sun Wukong and Nocturne, and finally regained her sanity. This powerful green dragon now has a pivotal position in the Green Dragonflight. Because the green dragon warrior Eranikus succumbed to the Nightmare Lord and was finally killed by Ysera in pain, Ysondre has now taken his place and become Ysera's deputy, the commander of the entire Green Dragonflight.

Tarecgosa of the blue dragons also said angrily: "Princess Krygosa must also be rescued. She is a hero of our clan and should not suffer such treatment!"

"No one will object to such an action. It is both to stop the evil conspiracy of the Twilight's Hammer and to rescue these dragon heroes." Aiden supported the actions of the Dragonflights on behalf of the mortals. "After the Nexus War, I will not stand idly by the tragic experiences of the three dragon heroes. We will also do our best to help you rescue them."

"Thank you very much for lending a helping hand at this time," Tarecgosa said sincerely.

"No need to thank you, this is also what we should do."

Aiden agreed, but he actually had a better way in his heart, but it was just a guess and needed to be verified further.

At this moment, Aiden sensed the familiar spacetime energy fluctuations around him. A golden portal unfolded in the hall, and then a small, lovely gnome loli walked out.

The representative of the Bronze Dragonflight in the Dragonmaw Clan has finally arrived!

Chromie shouted as she stepped out of the portal: "I have brought the Shifting Sands Scepter fragment guarded by our Bronze Dragonflight!"

She was holding a fragment in her raised little hand.