Threat

"I have experienced the fate of Azeroth across many timelines." The Moon Goddess began with this sentence, a clear sense of confusion visible in her silver eyes. "Across countless timelines, there are countless identical people—even though the fate of the world varies, many familiar names consistently appear, and they seem to follow a predetermined destiny. I used to firmly believe that this was the truth, a natural occurrence, nothing special. But there is another group of people—from them, I heard a unique perspective on this world."

Elune looked intently at Aiden, saying each word with emphasis: "I believe you are one of those people."

"Which group are you referring to?"

"People who are unique to a single timeline." Elune then explained, "I possess endless life, so sometimes I spare some energy to observe mortals—in these countless timelines, many people reappear. For example, Malfurion, Tyrande, Medivh, Varian, Arthas, Thrall, and so on… But there is a special group of people who only appear in one timeline. They call themselves—NPCs, and those mortals who reappear are also called NPCs. And they call themselves 'players,' and in their eyes, this world is a 'game.'"

"I gradually understood the meaning of these words and realized the difference in this group of people." Elune looked at Aiden, who showed a surprised expression. "So I wasn't wrong, you are also a player—you come from another world, don't you?"

Aiden's heart was churning like a stormy sea—because he had seen the underlying settings of "World of Warcraft". As a real world constructed with imaginary energy, the players experience an unparalleled sense of reality, almost without rules or restrictions—but in order to emphasize reality and allow players to truly play their roles, its underlying system shield blocked some special interactive languages.

Especially words like "player," "NPC," "game," and "boss fight."

Although the "players" who initially entered this game world could say these words, the system would translate them into language that the NPCs could fully understand, or they wouldn't be heard at all.

Even Elune, as a god, shouldn't be able to break through such restrictions. She shouldn't have heard these things.

Aiden didn't know what kind of change had allowed the Moon Goddess to know these things. He guessed it might be due to the independence of the imaginary world, or the immersion of that special energy, or the failure of the game company's shield shielding system, and so on.

But none of that mattered anymore—because he had become the only "player" in this world—and one with a very special identity.

"…Yes." Aiden nodded in acknowledgment.

"Then can you tell me the truth?" Elune asked.

"Didn't those players say anything before?"

Elune shook her head: "There was no opportunity—I suddenly realized at a certain point in time that this world was different from the world in your eyes, and before that, I wouldn't have had such thoughts at all—and when I wanted to ask, your people had already been killed or left this world—it was a very, very long time before you re-entered. So I started paying attention to you very early on, as well as those unique heroes around you."

Aiden was thoughtful. It seemed that Elune's personality independence should have started when the real world was invaded by monsters from within the game world.

He couldn't help but think of the ancient god, Vanaar, in Outland, and the power he mentioned that corrupted the original ancient gods and created a tendency towards destruction—this was also the truth that Aiden—or rather, Titan Aiden, as well as Aman'Thul and Sargeras, wanted to investigate.

Meeting her expectant gaze, he pondered: "Actually, there is no so-called truth. You can think of the so-called players as people from another world who can also see the past and future of Azeroth's timeline. They come here, some to enjoy life, some to explore, and some to gain the sense of accomplishment of saving the world or something else. Just like the reason you said I can't be resurrected—players all come from another world, we were not born here, we are not on the list, so naturally we cannot enjoy the treatment of resurrecting from the dream to the real world like Malorne and those ancient guardians."

"So you still know, don't you?" The Moon Goddess keenly grasped the key point in Aiden's words, her eyes lighting up with intense interest. "I want to hear the facts, not explanations."

"…" Aiden looked at Elune with some hesitation, instinctively feeling that this was not a good idea.

"Tell me the truth, and in exchange, I can help you resurrect—otherwise, you will stay in the Emerald Dream forever, until you are willing to tell the truth." Elune even resorted to blackmail to get the truth.

Although Aiden didn't sense any malice from the goddess's words, he had to give in—he had just learned about the dynamics of the real world from Elune, such as Deathwing's reappearance and the turmoil in Pandaria. If he didn't go back as soon as possible, years of effort would be ruined.

"alright, you win." He replied helplessly.

"Don't lie, I'll sense it!" Elune wore a victorious smile, her voice gentle, but with an undeniable tone. "Now tell me, how was this world born?"

"Created by a group of people." Aiden answered truthfully.

Elune gestured for him to continue, so he continued, "You've probably seen stories fictionalized by mortal novelists, bards, and the like, right? Like 'The Fallen Prince's Revenge' or 'The Biography of a Knightly Hero,' and so on."

The other party nodded, and Aiden said, "Before this world was born, about several hundred years ago, there was a game company called 'Blizzard.' They fictionalized such a story: The last Guardian Medivh was possessed by the dark titan Sargeras, who then guided the orcs of Draenor to build the Dark Portal and invade Azeroth. The first war between orcs and humans began. Based on this story, they created a real-time strategy game that, from the perspective of modern people, was very, very simple and crude."

"Game?" Elune was immediately attracted.

"Yes, a game—unfortunately, the Heart of Valoran isn't here with me, otherwise I could give you a slight demonstration… One… Two…" Before Aiden could finish speaking, he saw Elune reach out and grab, and a transparent crystal appeared in her hand. Aiden was speechless—this goddess really is… very curious.

"Is this what you're talking about?"

"Yes." Aiden took the crystal and used his mind to retrieve a laptop from the internal storage space—this was also one of the important "local products" he brought back from his time travel. Because this is after all World of Warcraft, although it is a remake, a real world created based on imaginary energy, it still respects the original work. So when he went back, he collected all the information about World of Warcraft that he could gather at the time.

He turned on the computer and ran the first generation of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans under the specially prepared DOS system. Although its graphics were rough and almost like a pixel game, the important thing was the content inside.

He briefly demonstrated this ancient game, and then took out a pile of books from the crystal. Although the names of these books were different, they all had the World of Warcraft logo. Aiden spread them out one by one, including the War of the Ancients trilogy: The Well of Eternity, The Demon Soul, and The Sundering, as well as Warcraft's modern history such as Rise of the Horde, Tides of Darkness, and Beyond the Dark Portal.

There were dozens of them in total, including novels, novellas, short stories, setting collections, comics… everything.

Elune reads very quickly. She can even scan with her mental power and remember all the content inside. This saves time reading.

Aiden explained, "These books and comics are official novels written by famous authors at the request of Blizzard after the Warcraft: Orcs & Humans and World of Warcraft series of games became popular. As the scale expanded, this world became more and more complete, and the entire World of Warcraft also expanded from the simple and crude beginning of the first generation 'Orcs & Humans' into a complete and wonderful fictional world."

Elune couldn't help but question, "But aren't we real? Are you saying that Azeroth, the timeline, the World of Warcraft… all of these are actually fictional, existing only in books and games? Are we just NPCs in this vast game? And Blizzard is our creator, that group of people—you also come from that group of people—are you the people who created the world? A group of real gods?"

Aiden waved his hand and said, "Don't worry—if you want to understand the truth, you must have a strong enough heart. If you can't accept it, then let's stop here?"

"…Continue!" Elune's expression returned to calm, but her voice had a hint of gritted teeth. "I have lived through endless years and witnessed countless rises and falls. These can't scare me."

"Hundreds of years later, humans discovered a way to enter the mirror world—this is related to a very complex mathematical theory. Specifically, in the real world, there should theoretically be a mirror world that is exactly the same as it—this should only exist in mathematical theory. It's like when we look in a mirror, the same things that are outside the mirror will appear in the mirror, but we will think that it is fake, an illusion. If we reach out to touch it, we will only touch the mirror, and not the person in the mirror who is the same as us."

Speaking of this, Aiden paused for a moment. Although he was explaining it to Elune now, he seemed to have grasped a clue—about the question he had never been able to figure out—why would the monsters from the game world invade reality?

"What's next?" Elune's reminder pulled him back. He saw Elune looking at him, seemingly without any confusion, and continued, "Later, people found a way to enter the mirror world—then they found that they could 'plan' this new world in some way—they could create any rules for this world, they could make water above and air below, they could make flames cold and ice hot, they could make apples fly into the sky instead of falling to the ground after they ripen… No matter what the rules are, they can be turned into reality according to their wishes."