Lost to time

Back when they attacked Yogg-Saron's lair, Benedictus, disguised as Medivh, almost wiped out Aiden and the other heroes. In reality, the person involved—the real Medivh—was completely unaware of this event.

For Medivh, he only considered the Burning Legion as his true enemy.

The dark titan Sargeras caused a lifetime of tragedy for Medivh and those around him, even plunging Azeroth and Draenor into endless war and disaster because of him.

After his resurrection, Medivh always regarded dealing with the Burning Legion as his top priority. He learned of Archimonde's death from the heroes returning from Outland, and while relieved, he also made it his primary task to wipe out the remaining forces of the Burning Legion.

It should be known that the 'Destroyer' Mannoroth had never truly died. With such a powerful demon commander remaining in Azeroth, who knew how much disaster he could cause?

If Mannoroth found a way to summon Kil'jaeden to Azeroth, then it would truly be over—so from a year ago until now, Medivh has been tracking these demons.

At the same time, Medivh wasn't the only one tracking Mannoroth; there was another powerful figure—'Cenarius, Lord of the Forest'.

His son, 'Remulos, Keeper of the Grove', died in the War of the Nightmare. The direct culprit, Xavius, had already been punished, but the indirect culprit, Mannoroth, was still on the run. Therefore, after the War of the Nightmare ended, Cenarius took his servants to hunt down this great demon.

But by the time he arrived at Felwood Forest, where Mannoroth had been entrenched, there was no trace of the demon. Cenarius tracked him all the way, finding his way to the Eastern Kingdoms from the clues he left behind.

The two who were tracking Mannoroth eventually met in the Blasted Lands. After exchanging information, they decided to cooperate—because they had both encountered a major problem—Mannoroth's last aura disappeared in the Blasted Lands.

Along with it disappeared the Dark Portal that once stood in the Blasted Lands, connecting Azeroth and Draenor. All that remained was a ruin after a violent explosion.

"Could they have escaped through the Dark Portal?" Cenarius looked at Medivh, who was the expert in this area.

According to normal logic, the demons, seeing that the situation was not good, escaped through the portal and destroyed the portal to prevent them from pursuing. This explanation made sense. However, this portal could no longer function properly, and Mannoroth couldn't possibly be unaware of this.

"If that were really the case, that would be good." Medivh's expression was serious. "I investigated before. Because Draenor, connected to the other side of the Dark Portal, has been reshaped, the portal coordinates on the other side have become invalid. Entering from this side will only lead to a temporal rift. Once you step in, you may never come out. Mannoroth wouldn't be foolish enough to lead all the demons in without even trying. There must be a reason we don't understand."

"What do you suspect, Medivh?"

"I suspect… Mannoroth should still be in our world." Medivh stared at the ruins of the Dark Portal. "Kil'jaeden will not give up any opportunity to destroy our world. He will not spare the lives of any of his demon subordinates to gain even a sliver of a chance to enter Azeroth. I believe Mannoroth must have received some order from his master, and that order is definitely not for him to escape, but to coordinate with Kil'jaeden's plan and create an opportunity for the Burning Legion to descend once again!"

Medivh was an expert in demonology, and Cenarius trusted his judgment.

"Do you have any plans?"

"Not yet," Medivh shook his head. He pointed to the area and said, "Mannoroth's aura disappeared here. I don't think he would have run too far. It's just that the Eastern Kingdoms are deserted now, making it impossible for us to obtain any useful information. If possible, it might be necessary to seek help from the mortal leaders."

"That will be difficult." Cenarius shook his head. "The land has been too severely polluted. Mortals will be corrupted by fel energy. We can only rely on our own strength. Do you have a general direction?"

"Deadwind Pass," Medivh mentioned the name. "I guess Mannoroth would go there."

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!"

—

The Nexus War had passed for half a year.

Half a year ago, Aiden guided the energy of the Focusing Iris to attack the Twilight Highlands, turning over the area where the Twilight's Hammer and the Dragonmaw clan were entrenched. At that time, Black Dragon Prince Nefarian was still conducting his Chromatic Dragon experiments in the Twilight Bastion. When attacked, Gul'dan summoned a portal to take them to the Elemental Plane of Earth.

Alexstrasza, the Eternal Dragon Prince, who was the last to leave, was supposed to take the three important 'experimental subjects'—Kaelestrasz, Kalecgos, and Malyndra—with him.

However, Malyndra cast an illusion to delay for a few seconds. Anachronos, worried that he wouldn't be able to escape, could only leave, leaving the three dragon heroes in the collapsing Twilight Bastion.

Kalecgos and the others thought they were about to die as free individuals, but the punishment from the sky did not truly destroy the lower laboratory. A few minutes later, everything calmed down. The arcane energy in the air was still incredibly chaotic. At this time, any elemental spell could not exert even one-tenth of its usual power, but that restless energy did not continue to spread, merely destroying most of the Twilight Bastion.

Kalecgos and the others were safe. It was simply a miracle!

Although buried under the ruins, they could still breathe freely, no longer having to be humiliated slaves, no longer having to worry about being accidentally injured by allies.

A few days later, a group of red dragons from the Ruby Dragonshrine flew here and eventually rescued them.

After thousands of years of suffering and torment, the three dragon heroes finally returned to their homes.

But the news they brought back to the dragon race was not optimistic—Nefarian's experiment seemed to be making great progress. Combined with Anachronos, he had successfully collected the bloodlines of the direct descendants of the five dragon aspects, and the creation of a true Chromatic Dragon was just around the corner.

Moreover, before that, they had already plotted to seize another nearly fully charged Focusing Iris!

Once the other party was truly ready, Deathwing would appear together with the Chromatic Dragon. This brought a deep sense of crisis to the other dragon aspects. It should be known that Deathwing alone was not so easy to deal with, let alone a Chromatic Dragon that required five dragon aspects to fight against?

This sense of crisis made the dragon aspects actually hold the same position as Aiden on the matter of subduing Deathwing, that is, the sooner the troops were sent, the better.

However, after the Ulduar crisis ended, the mortals faced a serious threat of famine and had no intention of starting another war. The four dragon aspects also had no ability to directly open the seal. Everything still depended on when Aiden would take action.

They had waited for four months, and finally, such an opportunity arrived—Aiden, in a meeting, presented the leaders with two choices: one, to purchase grain from the Starlight Consortium to overcome the crisis; two, to open the seal and go to Pandaria after eliminating Deathwing.

After the music festival concluded, the leaders all agreed to the second option.

Now, everyone was returning to prepare for war, while Aiden used the teleportation array to go to the Dragonblight Temple, and then to the Stone Halls of Ulduar to open the seal of the elemental planes.

Everything seemed to be proceeding in an orderly manner, but the Dragon Aspects were somewhat anxious. It wasn't because of the upcoming war with Deathwing, but because one of them had encountered a problem.

In the Caverns of Time, "The Timeless One," Nozdormu, was wailing in pain, a sound that was captured by the other three Dragon Aspects.

"What's wrong, Nozdormu?"

"Tell me quickly, what happened?"

"You are in pain."

"We can help you!"

The other three Dragon Aspects anxiously conveyed their concern to Nozdormu.

"It's the Infinite Dragonflight… It's them… Ah! My head hurts!"

Nozdormu's head was splitting with pain. Countless images flashed before his eyes, all pointing to a terrifying truth: the Infinite Dragonflight was attempting to tamper with history!

The time point was… the War of the Ancients period.

He had observed anomalies in the timeline, and the interference from his future self, who had become the Infinite Dragon Aspect, was causing him unbearable pain.

Nozdormu haltingly told the other Dragon Aspects about the anomalies he had observed. He knew he had to do something quickly. Once the history of the War of the Ancients was altered, it would be a great disaster!

"So, is it time to reveal the memories obscured by time?" Ysera's voice echoed faintly.

She had always known that Aiden would travel back to the War of the Ancients in the future, help them contain the conspiracy of the Infinite Dragonflight, and ultimately achieve victory. This was because she guarded the dreams of living beings; in her own domain, time's shielding of memories had no effect.

But others were different.

Even Nozdormu, the Dragon Aspect who controlled time, sometimes couldn't distinguish between the past and the future. Aiden returning to the past was something Nozdormu himself had done, yet he had still lost that part of his memory.

Everyone who had interacted with Aiden in the War of the Ancients had forgotten him, except for Ysera.

"Aiden—you want to send him to the War of the Ancients? At this time?" Ysera quietly conveyed her thoughts to Nozdormu, without letting the others hear.

She was a little worried.

Now was the crucial moment to eliminate Deathwing. No one knew whether what Nozdormu was currently experiencing was a conspiracy—no, it must be a conspiracy.

Because the Infinite Dragonflight served the Old Gods and wanted to help Deathwing destroy the world.

The fact that the other party was invading the timeline at this time was precisely to coordinate with their master's plan, wasn't it?

They wanted to delay time, that must be it!

Nozdormu was somewhat surprised and uncertain. He hadn't yet thought of a suitable method. He himself couldn't move easily, and the other members of the Bronze Dragonflight would also find it difficult to complete the task of preventing the alteration of the War of the Ancients history—their strength was insufficient.

"Aiden," he heard Ysera mention this name, and his eyes suddenly lit up—if there was someone who possessed the power of time and was capable of guiding the War of the Ancients in the right direction, it would definitely be Aiden!

This was truly a perfect choice!

But even he himself hadn't thought of it. How did Ysera know?

However, he quickly remembered the "Dreamweaver's" special ability. Then, enlightened by Ysera, he immediately checked the past history, and unsurprisingly saw Aiden, with his help, returning to the past and stopping the Infinite Dragonflight from altering the outcome of the War of the Ancients.

"Yes, yes. Aiden… return… is… part of history… Ah—it hurts, my head hurts… You know… know he went back… This is… inevitable…" Nozdormu seemed to have exhausted all his strength after saying this sentence. Afterwards, his voice was extremely weak, causing great concern.

Because he was in too much pain, this thought, which should have been sent to Ysera alone, was transmitted to all the Dragon Aspects.

"What are you saying? Nozdormu! You want to send Aiden through time?"

"This, this is very dangerous!"

Alexstrasza and Malygos were shocked.

Even if they didn't understand the domain of time, they knew that in the past, when facing the Infinite Dragonflight's invasion of time, Nozdormu had always sent his Bronze Dragonflight to solve the problem. Because others might not necessarily abide by the rules of time travel. If they accidentally or deliberately changed some important historical events, it would really cause unknown disasters!

"We should support Nozdormu in this matter," Ysera said after a moment of silence.

Alexstrasza angrily questioned, "What's wrong with you, Ysera? How could you agree to such a proposal!"

"Because Aiden's journey to the past timeline is originally a part of history. Now, I think there's no need to keep it a secret."

Ysera told them what she knew, and then said, "He must go to complete history, otherwise our world would have been destroyed by the Burning Legion ten thousand years ago. This time, Nozdormu is right."

Her sister and Malygos were speechless for a long time. They needed some time to digest this news.

Logically speaking, Aiden had already appeared during the War of the Ancients, and was such a pivotal figure, they shouldn't have forgotten him.

However, because "time travel" itself hadn't happened yet, and the time point of the travel was in the future, time shielded their memories, preventing them from remembering that there was such a person who stopped the Infinite Dragonflight's conspiracy to alter the history of the War of the Ancients.

Now was the time to unlock the secrets of time.

Alexstrasza said bitterly, "This is the Infinite Dragonflight's conspiracy—so the disaster brought by Deathwing will still come, and we can't stop him in advance… Is that so?"

Her response was silence.

This was a difficult choice between two options.

Choosing to let Aiden travel would give Deathwing ample preparation time, and he would return to the earth as the Destroyer.

And if Aiden didn't travel, then the outcome of the War of the Ancients would be very different from the present.

Perhaps at the time when Aiden should have traveled, if he hadn't traveled, time would restore the truth—they shouldn't have survived, everything would become a dream bubble, and all of them, and this world, might collapse in an instant.

"This is the secret buried by time," Ysera said indifferently.

She wasn't familiar with the domain of time, but at least she knew that Aiden had indeed traveled to the War of the Ancients period and stopped Sargeras's arrival.

Calculated, the time point of his travel should be around this time—Year 24 of the Dark Portal.