Kayle exclaimed, hearing Aiden's roar. This commander of all heroes in the League of Legends, leader of the Valoran Federation, and legendary hero revered by everyone in Azeroth was fearlessly throwing himself into the sea of fire.
The black-purple flames almost completely engulfed him, and the shield formed by the power of the Guardian Dragons and the Holy Light of the Naaru was rapidly dissolving. Especially when he deliberately approached the crack on the Chromatic Dragon's heart that was spewing destructive power, the external defense almost vanished instantly.
Kayle immediately summoned Divine Protection to descend upon Aiden, but the golden shield that could originally block all damage disappeared in a flash, almost as if it didn't exist.
A strong sense of powerlessness occupied the angel's heart. She saw Aiden raising the staff in his hand high in the black flames. He let out an unyielding roar and slammed the staff down fiercely.
The golden flames spreading outward from Aiden's body were also swallowed by the black flames, followed by his body...
Kayle couldn't bear to watch any longer. She lowered her head and opened her palm, where the Heart of Valoran was lying.
This was Aiden's most important possession. It was not only a tool for summoning Valoran's heroes, armies, civilians, and resources, but also a spatial item for storing important items, such as his own weapons and equipment, as well as those "local specialties" brought back from Earth.
The importance of this item was self-evident; Aiden almost never let it leave his side. But now he had entrusted the Heart of Valoran to her, and Kayle already understood his choice.
He had chosen to sacrifice himself—
Aiden tasted the pain of being burned by the flames. He clenched his teeth, using all his strength to slam down the staff, blindly smashing it towards the crack spewing flames of hatred—because he had already lost his sight at this point.
"Crack," he heard a crisp sound like a stone being shattered—before he lost his hearing.
Breaking through this final barrier, the vast energy within the corpse of Chromatus instantly poured out uncontrollably. All the remaining parts of Aiden's body were completely submerged in that instant.
His consciousness faded into darkness, but quickly revived.
He felt an unprecedented sense of ease and joy. The pain of being burned by the flames had completely left him, and the surrounding surging flames of destruction could no longer harm him in the slightest.
Because he was now in soul form.
Sargeras' staff and gem appeared in his hand, and in his perception, there were two spheres of similar size rotating around a larger bead, like two planets orbiting the sun.
These three beads all emitted incredibly vast energy, and they were the source of Chromatus' terrifying power—
The largest one in the middle was a radiant white-gold orb. Aiden sensed the power of a Titan artifact within it, and he was certain that it was the Titan energy orb that Chromatus had excavated from the Halls of Origination.
The other two were one gold and one blue. He was very familiar with the blue one; it was the Focusing Iris, the artifact of the Blue Dragonflight. This was the one that Anna had brought to this world, then was seized by Malygos, and finally stolen by the Twilight's Hammer during the Nexus War.
The golden orb contained the power of the five colored Dragon Aspects. Without a doubt, it was the "perfect Dragon Soul" created jointly by Deathwing and N'Zoth.
The three artifacts formed a perfect energy circuit. The perfect Dragon Soul prevented the Chromatic and Twilight Dragon genes within Chromatus from conflicting; the Focusing Iris provided it with endless power; and the Titan energy orb strengthened its power while also allowing it to defend against attacks from Titan artifacts.
However, this balance was very fragile. Just a slight adjustment would turn the perfect energy cycle into a violent energy collision!
Chromatus was doing just that. It had only slightly adjusted the orbit of the Focusing Iris, breaking the balance of energy. The Focusing Iris was changing its orbit, rotating faster and faster, getting closer and closer to the Titan energy orb. When the two collided, the incompatible energies would completely explode!
That was enough energy to destroy Azeroth more than a dozen times, and no one could survive!
Aiden sensed that the Focusing Iris was very close to the Titan energy orb, and thankfully, there was still time!
But just as he was about to act, another soul body suddenly stood in front of him—it was Chromatus!
Its body had already died, but its soul had not dissipated. It was now an existence like a Frost Wyrm, a "Undead Dragon". Originally, it couldn't do anything with just its soul. It couldn't possibly use its soul to charge at the Guardian Dragons and Naaru outside, right?
It thought it would quietly watch the energy explode within its body, and then its soul would be completely annihilated. But it did not regret it, because these people around it, as well as all the creatures in the world, would be annihilated afterward, to "accompany" it in death.
Unexpectedly, just when everything was about to be completed, Aiden actually rushed in fearlessly—that was truly fearless.
It had personally witnessed this human's physical body completely dissolving in the flames of hatred—this was truly a ruthless person!
And now, the other party had actually entered in soul form, wanting to stop it from completing its final mission!
This was unbearable, utterly unbearable! Chromatus immediately jumped out and roared, "You want to stop all this from happening? Want to make my sacrifice in vain? That's wishful thinking! Get past me first!"
Comparing the size of their souls—Aiden was insignificant compared to Chromatus, whose soul still maintained the massive size of the Chromatic Dragon's body.
But the power of the soul was not calculated by volume.
This was the purest spiritual world.
Most heroes possessed considerable power in the material world, but their soul strength hardly increased, remaining almost the same as when their strength was low.
Chromatus belonged to this category, but Aiden was not one of them.
His soul was naturally very powerful—this may have been a talent, or it may have been related to his identity with supreme authority, and he also had acquired training.
No one in all of Azeroth dared to say that their soul was stronger than Aiden's. Even the Old God Yogg-Saron could not invade his soul, let alone this Chromatic Dragon, which seemed large but was actually only a few months old and had incomplete intellectual development?
So this was a completely crushing battle—the smaller side displayed great power, and the larger side was completely crushed.
In just a few breaths, Chromatus—the strongest Twilight Dragon created jointly by Deathwing and Sinestra, then injected with the perfect Chromatic Dragon genes developed by Nefarian, and implanted with the perfect Dragon Soul and Focusing Iris by N'Zoth himself—its soul completely dissipated between heaven and earth.
For Aiden, destroying such a weak soul was just a piece of cake!
After losing the support of its soul, this Undead Chromatic Dragon, which was originally floating in the air, was stripped of its last strength and fell in free fall.
Aiden focused his mind, because the Focusing Iris's orbit was already very close to the Titan energy orb, and the final explosion would definitely be triggered when the Chromatic Dragon's corpse hit the ground.
He only had the last ten seconds!
Aiden used his will to lift the Titan energy orb, first cutting off the internal connection between the three, so that this Titan artifact could not prevent him from reading the Focusing Iris's model. Then, he poured his soul power into the Eye of Sargeras and read the model: the perfect Dragon Soul and the Focusing Iris were quickly recorded.
"Execute command—separation!"
Invisible lines of rules were cut down, closing the internal energy cycle channels between the three orbs that N'Zoth had personally connected.
And at this moment, in the physical world outside the spiritual world, the Chromatic Dragon's corpse fell to the ground like a burning meteorite.
Although the Focusing Iris and the energy orb did not collide violently, the power previously stored in the Chromatic Dragon's body still erupted.
"Boom!"
A mushroom cloud rose from the giant pit, followed by a violent shockwave spreading outward.
"Retreat quickly!" Nozdormu roared, using the power of time to slow down the flow of time as much as possible before the impact arrived.
The Naaru let the power of the Holy Light re-envelop the ancient beach, while others took the opportunity to retreat beyond the light barrier.
The Dragon Aspects spat out their divine power, maximizing the strength of the Holy Light barrier.
Fortunately, they could all feel that although this explosion was extraordinary in power, it was not terrifying, at least not enough to destroy Azeroth—that is to say, Aiden had succeeded!
This was incredibly exciting news—so much so that their excitement outweighed their being knocked down and seriously injured by the spreading shockwave!
"He did it!"
"I can hardly believe it—I thought this would be our end."
"Not yet, my brother."
"Haha, that's right. He saved us."
Thinking of Aiden, the Dragon Aspects fell silent again. They all felt that they were the ones who should have sacrificed themselves, but someone had fulfilled this responsibility for them. Nozdormu and Malygos were even more ashamed, recalling their past foolish actions. They couldn't help but regret why they had been so blinded in the first place, opposing such a great hero—and afterwards, it had always been proven that they were wrong, not Aiden.
The energy of the explosion had not completely subsided when Kayle stood up and said, "I'll go in and take a look."
"Kayle!" Ysera called out to her. The angel turned to look at the Green Dragon Queen, who said, "I know that Aiden's sacrifice is a heavy blow to you, but he has not left us. His soul will enter the Emerald Dream, and we can revive him by paying a certain price—just like reviving those ancient guardians of Mount Hyjal."
"I know," Kayle nodded, indicating that she understood. "No matter how big or small the price is, I will complete it."
"I will do my best to help you," Ysera encouraged.
"We will too," the other Dragon Aspects, and even the Naaru, expressed their support.
"Everyone will," Khadgar shrugged, "This world needs his protection."
This world needs Aiden's protection—even though this person had only come to Azeroth for less than five years, no one would object.
But just then, a dragon roar came from the sky. The four Dragon Aspects suddenly changed color:
"Deathwing!"