Ulduar

Looking back at all the disasters Azeroth has suffered, which one came closest to true annihilation?

The war between the Titans and the Old Gods in ancient times?

Not really. Because the Titans possessed far greater power and technology than the Old Gods, the few Old Gods and their servants were quickly defeated.

Galakrond's mutation under the influence of the Old Gods tens of thousands of years ago?

Also not really. A monster that could be choked to death by a large rock? I doubt anyone would truly believe it could destroy the world.

Then, what about the War of the Ancients?

Sargeras almost descended upon Azeroth, and the Burning Legion pushed the resistance forces back again and again. Countless immortals died in that catastrophe.

But this war only counts as 'close'—its damage to Azeroth was not as devastating as the cataclysm caused by the explosion of the Well of Eternity. And in the end, Sargeras still failed to descend.

Next, the birth of the Scourge, and the second invasion of the Burning Legion, these all posed some threat, but whether it's the timeline Aiden is currently in, or the 'classic plot,' these are nothing.

As for the Nightmare Invasion later, and the emergence of Deathwing, and even the birth of the Iron Horde further down the line, these all pose threats, but overall, the real threat to Azeroth's survival is another crisis—the Ulduar Crisis!

Ulduar was a prison built by the Titans to imprison the Old God Yogg-Saron. When the Titans left Azeroth, they appointed several Keepers to manage the prison and observe the world's operation.

Loken, the King of Wisdom, was the leader of these six Keepers, but no one could have imagined that the Titan's Keepers would also fail to withstand the Old God's corruption. Loken, the Prime Designate, became the first to fall.

After he pledged allegiance to Yogg-Saron, he made it his lifelong goal to release his master and the other Old Gods. Then, he slowly began to implement a plan that had been brewing for tens of thousands of years.

First, he had to eliminate the second-generation Titan creations on Azeroth that had strong resistance to the Curse of Flesh—the Storm Giants and the Stone Giants.

These giants were the most loyal Titan guards and possessed great strength. Loken had the highest authority in Azeroth, so he easily provoked infighting between the Storm Giants and the Stone Giants, eventually depleting most of the combat power of these two powerful creations in internal strife, so that they no longer posed a threat to the Old Gods.

To corrupt the other Keepers, Loken conspired to kill Sif, the wife of his brother Thorim, the Storm Lord, and framed the Frost Giants. Finally, he lured Thorim to his territory, cooperated with the Old Gods to defeat him, and then corrupted him.

The other Keepers, such as Hodir, the King of Winter, Mimiron, the Lord of Invention, and Freya, the Lifebinder, also failed to escape Loken's schemes and calculations, and all became servants of the Old Gods.

Among the Keepers, only Tyr, the King of Order, noticed a clue and hid himself, avoiding Loken's sight. But how could he, alone, contend with Loken? Even his own power and authority were weakened a lot because he left the Halls of Order, making it even more impossible to defeat Loken.

Only when the elite forces of Azeroth were fighting against Loken did he come up with a way to correct Ulduar's errors by borrowing the power of these mortals.

But this was really not an easy task.

The root of the Keepers' fall lay in Loken, and if Loken was killed, the Titan device would immediately send a signal to the Pantheon, reporting the death of the Prime Designate, and then Observers from the Pantheon would descend and inquire about what had happened.

Now, Azeroth's ecological environment and operating mode are very different from what the Titans had expected, and with the serious threat and corruption of the Old Gods to the Titan world, the Observers would almost certainly send a signal requesting the Pantheon to enable the failsafe system, formatting and restarting the world.

That meant that all life on this planet would be destroyed, and everything would be restored to the way it was in the Emerald Dream.

Aiden had experienced such a thing in Draenor. Without an effective way to avoid it, it meant that everyone would die without resistance.

Whether it was Sargeras, the Burning Legion, Deathwing, or the Old Gods, people always had the power to resist when they wanted to destroy the world, but when the object of destruction became the Titans, no one could resist, because the destroyers could complete the destruction without even coming to this world.

Kill Algalon?

Let's not talk about whether it can be done. Even if it really could, I'm afraid that upon receiving the information about the Observer's death, the Pantheon would either send a higher-level agent, or they would directly think that the ecological environment of the planet Azeroth had deteriorated to the extreme, and then they would directly start the formatting system from a distance.

Aiden went through all the plots about Ulduar in his mind, and slowly had an idea in his heart.

The Titans have the ability and reason to destroy Azeroth, but he can't just treat the Titans as enemies because of this.

In fact, after the meeting with Aman'Thul in the Timeways, whether Aiden himself admits it or not, his identity as a 'Titan' has been confirmed. The Titans are 'our own people.' If Algalon descends, Aiden believes that they can even make the other party go back obediently without even fighting the Observer.

What Aiden is considering is how to solve the threat of the Old God Yogg-Saron.

Although the plot of Ulduar has been brought forward by a few years, in fact, this plan has been planned for tens of thousands of years. Since Loken's fall, the plan to release Yogg-Saron has been proceeding in an orderly manner. Advancing or postponing it by a few years will hardly affect the internal situation of Ulduar.

According to Aiden's thinking, solving the Ulduar crisis seems to be as simple as killing Loken in the Halls of Lightning, then leading the army all the way into Ulduar, freeing the few Keepers who have lost their minds, and then taking these Keepers to Yogg-Saron's prison to reseal him—it seems like that's it.

This is the safest way.

Because of his special identity, there is no need to consider the setting that the Observer must be defeated within an hour of descending. They have plenty of time to deal with Yogg-Saron. Even with the addition of the four Dragon Aspects, the power to attack Ulduar is several times stronger than in the classic plot—you know, originally it was Brann Bronzebeard who led the elite of the Explorers' League, plus the Kirin Tor Council, who completed the attack on Ulduar and resealed Yogg-Saron. They didn't even get help from the Alliance and the Horde—because these two groups met in Dalaran and, remembering the old and new grudges of Icecrown Citadel not long ago, King Varian and Garrosh had a fight, and then broke up unhappily.

Now there are elites from the Alliance and the Horde, heroes from Valoran, and the four Dragon Aspects and the dragon legions, so it is almost effortless to accomplish such a thing.

So, what Aiden is considering is not resealing Yogg-Saron, but how to use the existing power to inflict a heavy blow on this Old God!

It's best to make him unable to jump around for thousands or tens of thousands of years!

—

The most famous explorer in Azeroth is Brann Bronzebeard. Especially since more than two years ago, he led an expedition to excavate the Titan ruins of Uldaman in the Badlands, which further established his position as chief explorer.

Valoran also has a famous explorer. Compared to Brann, he is much younger, but his achievements are also well-known in Valoran's explorer circle.

He is Piltover's chief explorer—Ezreal.

Two equally renowned explorers quickly became good friends after meeting due to their shared interests.

This time, the two explorers and their respective expeditions were summoned to Wyrmrest Temple because of a 'big job'!

Upon hearing that it was another exploration of a Titan laboratory, Brann immediately became excited. Aiden didn't tell the explorers more information, but only told them that they were going to explore a Titan laboratory in the Storm Peaks. In recent years, 'Titan' has become the hottest word in Brann's eyes. He found some information about the origins of the dwarves and gnomes from the successively excavated Titan ruins, as well as some clues about the Titans creating the world.

Before that, people didn't even know that there was such a thing as 'Titan'—Brann eagerly hoped to find more information about the origin of the world in this laboratory called Ulduar. Therefore, after receiving instructions, he immediately set off with the expedition and headed to the peaks of the Storm Peaks.

To protect the safety of these explorers, a group of powerful heroes also joined the expedition. Azeroth's elite forces followed behind, slowly advancing towards the snowy mountains.

Aiden had his reasons for not telling Brann the detailed information about Ulduar at once.

If we assume that the Old Gods have the ability to detect all of their conversations, communications, and troop deployments, then every overt plan they make will be detected by the enemy and met with targeted countermeasures.

Therefore, the real plan must not be spoken aloud, and even the intention should not be easily revealed.

The last successful assassination of Blackmoore almost proves this point, but Aiden is not 100% certain. Because, in the end, the Twilight's Hammer still obtained the charged Focusing Iris. It seems that their chromatic dragon plan was not actually affected, only a high-ranking servant died.

It's better to be careful than sorry. Doing so will not affect the plan to attack Ulduar. Aiden decided to use this strategy to test the bottom line of the Old Gods.

Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated!

—

Although Brann Bronzebeard didn't get more information about Ulduar from Aiden, his innate keen sense quickly led him to find clues about this Titan laboratory and smoothly touch his way to the Halls of Stone in Ulduar.

The Halls of Stone is a part of Ulduar, and within it is a place called the Tribunal of Ages, which has a Titan mainframe system that automatically answers questions. Brann learned the questions he wanted to clarify here.

Such as the origin of dwarves and the world, the Old Gods and the Curse of Flesh, and some of the changes within Ulduar. The information obtained here greatly satisfied him. He finally solved many of his previous confusions and came into contact with part of the truth of the world.

Truth with limitations—that's how it should be put.

Because from Aiden's perspective, these are all plots, settings, and even everyone existing on this timeline can be regarded as a string of data in a certain sense—although they truly exist, the reason for their existence is not because of the birth of the universe, the creation of the Titans, or tens of thousands of years of evolution and civilization accumulation, but because people from another world created all of this.

No matter how real this world is, in the end, it is a group of programmers from Earth who built it based on the special nature of the imaginary world. The changes in this world are not due to the struggles and reproduction of living beings, but because an invisible hand is controlling everything.

The truth is always despairing, and Aiden doesn't intend to tell anyone. He is now also a part of this world, and he cannot be sure that everything he has witnessed is the truth. Hidden behind this world is still an invisible mist, waiting for him to uncover it.

The Ulduar crisis is just one of the steps.

When the expedition and the heroes attacked the Halls of Stone, Loken, the "King of Wisdom," the master of the nearby Halls of Lightning, immediately knew everything. He even knew their actions before they attacked.

"Master, should we proceed with the next step of the plan?" Loken was in his temple, but he knelt humbly on one knee, communicating with the master who did not exist in front of him through telepathy.

"I see." The voice of the Old God Yogg-Saron came from the dark depths. It has been closely monitoring the development of the situation. When C'Thun died before, it realized that these mortals would surely regard it as the next target of attack. This is beyond doubt.

The Old Gods are qualified to be the greatest enemies of the Pantheon, not only because of their unique ability to invade the real world, but also because they are one of the species that understand the "truth" of the world.

The truth they know is different from the truth the Titans know, or the truth that humans in the real world know.

Yogg-Saron is very clear that the existence of the Old Gods is because the creators outside the world created this identity and everything in this world, but it does not therefore revere those true creators—that is, the programmers who built this world as Aiden knows—on the contrary, all the Old Gods are instructed by a strong will to destroy this world and destroy those humans in the real world as their ultimate goal.

In the "setting" of the game World of Warcraft, the Old Gods are just a kind of monster, an ultimate BOSS that runs through the entire storyline. In the end, they cannot escape the fate of providing equipment and achievements for the players who enter this world. This is the plot set by the company that made this imaginary world game for the Old Gods.

However, since players were killed by the Old Gods, and then mysteriously died in reality, the "setting" began to fail.

Not only within the game world, but even on the upper layers of the imaginary space's Earth, the protection rules in the "Paradise on Earth" built by the Titan's Heart relying on the platform, something that can also be regarded as a "setting," began to fail. Humans no longer possess eternal life and health, and they also face countless attacks from monsters in the game world.

Similarly, the Old Gods in the World of Warcraft no longer follow the "setting" to ultimately provide players with gold coins, equipment, and achievements. Instead, they have become the "killers" of the players, turning from prey into hunters. "Players" have become their hunting targets.

Free from the limitations of the rules, the Old Gods immediately posed a great threat to this world.

When Yogg-Saron controlled the Lich King Arthas before, he said an infinitely arrogant sentence: "We are subject to forces beyond time, forces beyond fate. No one can resist this power, not even the Titans and the Burning Legion! Those who stand in our way will be destroyed!"

Although arrogant, this sentence does describe some of the characteristics of the Old Gods:

Because they understand the essence of the world, they will not be bound by the web-like timeline. The will of every Old God on every timeline is interconnected. They know what is happening and has already happened on all timelines. Because of this, they appear to be almost omniscient and omnipotent;

Because they broke the initial "setting," their destiny is no longer limited to being defeated or even destroyed by "players" or historical figures under various miracles and coincidences under the influence of the plot;

Because their power not only runs through the entire World of Warcraft, but can also be mapped to the outside real world, they are almost unstoppable. Because even the Titans have no way to eliminate them. And as time goes by, their power will become stronger and stronger, and eventually they will rule the entire world!

As Yogg-Saron said, those who stand in the way of them, the Old Gods, will be destroyed!

"Come to Ulduar, my servant. Use a feast to entertain these intruders." Yogg-Saron's deep and eerie voice entered Loken's mind.

Loken immediately said loudly: "As you command, my master!"

Yogg-Saron queried the plots about Ulduar on other timelines. It knew that, according to the normal order, Brann Bronzebeard would lead his troops to attack the Halls of Lightning, kill Loken, and finally attack Ulduar, rescue the other guardians, and eventually re-seal it.

Sealing does not mean death, Yogg-Saron is very clear, but who would be willing to stay in a dark prison if there is a chance to break free?

Even knowing that the Old Gods will surely win as time goes by, Yogg-Saron does not want to be a member watching the show in prison—just like C'Thun, who was inexplicably bombarded by the Focusing Iris, and tens of thousands of years of power was almost destroyed in one fell swoop. It is unknown how long it will take to truly recover.

According to the timeline, such a C'Thun is obviously unable to join the revelry at the "End of Time."

The Old Gods will surely win, but this has nothing to do with C'Thun.

Yogg-Saron hopes that he will be an Old God who shares the victory, rather than staring at other Old Gods completing that great cause with envious eyes!

"N'Zoth, the plan is underway." It conveyed its will to another Old God.

"Mm." That was the other party's response.