"That is simple, stupid demons like Mal'Ganis has been here for thousands of years and look around! Dalaran thrives anyway! Terenas and his paladins should just ignore the filth and focus on developing their kingdom!"

  A hunched figure overheard a gnome engrossed in a debate with a bulky man sitting on a bench. He had to cover his mouth while snickering when he heard the talkative little fellow.

  "Am I the filth you speak about, little rat? We will see about how inconsequential I am." James Clark mumbled under his breath and touched an enchanted vial hidden under his robe. It was a very expensive, yet fragile item, designed to safely contain the most dangerous liquids one might encounter during experiments. As the pursuit of knowledge and innovation was the backbone of Dalaran, there was nothing strange about the man having the vial, what was unusual was the content in it, a black liquid with a mind of its own.

  He agreed with the gnome that the cultists and demon worshipers were filth, but they had their uses.

  He rushed towards his hidden warehouse in the Underbelly of Dalaran, leaving the glittering, clean streets of the city for the dimly lit spaces underground with wooden half-rotten structures all around him. He pulled out a rusted key and unlocked the steel reinforced door of the place lost in the stench of stagnant water, the cheapest and most hidden space he could find.

  Slamming the door behind him, he turned his key around twice to lock it again, before coming to a table with his notes.

  "Nobody needs to see this." He quickly picked up all the papers on the table and put them into a neat pile, igniting the pile with a flick of his fingers afterwards. His job was almost done, he came to make sure nobody could trace the vial back to them.

  "There will be some high elves sniffing around later, we cannot have them finding out any clues." He diligently walked around the small room filled with vials, notes and liquids, destroying all that might be used as evidence against him.

  "Oh, and their human friends of course." An angry expression appeared on his face. He hated the arrogant high elves the most, but their human collaborators were only a hair behind.

  Humans should not fraternize with the high elven garbage. They had their turn at magic and all had seen their accomplishments!

  The high elves had blown up half of the world in their arrogance after inviting foreign armies to invade, they had always been a plague upon the world. James considered them even more dangerous than the demons themselves, as they acted friendly and pure until their arrogant, insidious nature came to the light.

  He had long sought to expose their evil nature and put an end to the destructive race once and for all, that is why he had immediately jumped at the current opportunity that would allow him to do just that. He glanced at the last piece of paper that was being licked by flames and read the name fading into black ash.

  "Dar'Khan Drathir, you will be the one showing the truth to the world, I will gladly provide all you have asked for and more." James Clark laughed and looked around, ensuring he had destroyed all evidence.

  "Time to leave." He left the room that was clean and totally empty at this point and locked the door behind him. In the next second, he molded the key with simple elemental magic into a ball and threw it into the deepest part of the sewer that flowed nearby.

  "I should wash up somewhere and rest before returning to Stormwind, my job here is done." He had enough of the annoying place that was more corrupted than magical in his opinion and the fact that he was able to do what he did only proved his conjecture.

  It was already dark when he entered an inn and paid for a room that had just been vacated by some adventurer. Entering the cozy place that was decorated in the latest fashion of bright colors and rectangular surfaces, he frowned in distaste, but it was all just superficial decorations. What mattered was the final product that needed to be expressly delivered to the buyer.

  James pulled out the vial that held inside the blood of the Old Gods. The vial was far from ordinary and none of the ominous presence was leaking outside, it was truly a work of art.

  "At least for a while, it should remain undiscovered." He had no clue what the insane magister wanted to do with the blood, but it would surely bring shame and destruction upon the high elves. The high elves were like simple dogs, even though they knew the meat was poisoned, they would bite.

  Suddenly, he frowned when he felt a slight unease. It was only faint and he would have never noticed it, if he was not deliberately checking on the safety of the vial, but it still lingered in the room.

  "That is impossible! The spell should hold for months without being corrupted!" He stopped himself from shouting in frustration, but then realized that the feeling was not coming from the vial.

  "What is this?" His eyes sharpened and he walked to the edge of the room, violently turning over a carpet that was unassumingly lying on the floor.

  James crouched and inspected a piece of floor that was covered by the fabric, there was a lot of scratch marks as if someone had tried to conceal something there, or rather, tried to make something unintelligible.

  Naturally, that was a futile effort in the face of someone as shrewd and experienced as him, it took him only a few minutes before a strange symbol appeared before him. It exuded a vile presence that was similar, yet different to that of the Old Gods.

  "Marvelous, I do not know what this is, but it would make a perfect bonus for my customer." The mage took the enchanted vial containing the merchandise and began scratching the symbol on top of it, before concealing its presence.

  * * * *

  Kael eyes were glued to the horizon, where the teal hue was slowly turning crimson-black, oozing the all too familiar presence of Khorne. He had to suppress his feeling of guilt, as he remembered what he had done earlier, but there was no way his minor action led to a disaster of this magnitude. He was not trying to downplay his sin, but it was simply unrealistic.

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  "We get you bro, now you can hand it over, yeah?!" A sailor came to Kael, more focused on doing his routine work than paying attention to what was happening around him.

  "Fine, do not change the course."

  "Aya, captain." The sailor said jokingly and the real captain a few meters away from them quickened his pace, the muscles on his right arm bulging. However, his next action was halted by a hand placed on his shoulder.

  "Stop, there will be no infighting during an emergency."

  "This is no infighting, he is an enemy combatant!" The captain was furious and tried to free himself, even though Uther was his superior. "I will only stop when he is no longer on this ship!"

  Still only focused on doing his job, the sailor at the helm performed an abrupt change of direction, forcing everyone to hold onto something to keep themselves steady.

  "You will be flogged for this! I command the direction of this ship!" The captain wanted to shout some more, but when he turned around, he saw what everyone else had been staring at.

  Not far in front of them, a patch of water turned bright pink with black spots, the black spots moving in a peculiar patterns that did not seem completely random. Occasionally, a pillar of red, sticky liquid erupted from some of the black spots, the vertical stream reaching tens of meter in height, almost as high as the main mast of the ship.

  "Hold her steady, this is nothing to be concerned about." Kael gripped the helm as well, and slowly returned the ship onto its original course.

  "Are you mad? What about that thing?!" The sailor protested, but he could do little against the inquisitor's strength.

  "We have to destroy the source quickly or run. To hesitate means death." Kael said while observing their ship entering the anomalous water. Thankfully, he was right and the strangeness of the water was indeed just an illusion with one of the pillars of blood passing through the ship like a mirage.

  "It looked terrifying, but is it just an Illusion? " Relieved voices surrounded Kael, but he was not as pleased as them.

  "Not for long, we have to speed up! This is too slow!" The inquisitor shouted, alarmed by the familiar phenomenon. He wanted to curse himself for wanting to see something familiar, as he was finally seeing it.

  For some reason, the reality around them was gradually drifting into warp.

  The annoyed captain had finally reached the inquisitor, but Kael ignored him and turned towards Uther, who seemed to have the most sway over the diverse force of the expedition.

  "Lord Uther, this is a warp anomaly with the source on that island. This situation will get only worse unless we reach the center and destroy the corruption there."

  "That is precisely what we are doing now." The leading paladin responded. To quickly get his argument through, Kael Gull reached out with his weapon and swung lightly through one of the streams of blood that was passing through the ship. His chainsword passed through it like before, yet there was a minor change. When he paused his blade in front of Uther's eyes, there were two little droplets of blood.

  "Not fast enough, we need to go much faster. Many times faster. The Materium is warping and we will not be able to easily pass through for much longer." He managed to get across his sense of urgency. "We need a few elite ships to go forth as fast as we can or turn around and run."

  By this time, even the fuming captain that kept trying to pacify the inquisitor stopped his efforts, as he was unable to move even a single finger of the power armor anyway and only kept embarrassing himself.

  Uther the Lightbringer spoke into the heavy silence with his deep voice, It took him only one second to decide.

  "Gather the Silver Hand on this ship and all agents of Kirin Tor! I want this ship flying forward! Hold nothing back!" He thundered emitting a wave of Light.

  Shortly, mages began appearing left and right on the ship, using Blink, while Keal kept lazily waving his sword through the passing blood pillars to check the speed of the Materium degradation. The blood continued to be more present in the Materium with every passing minute, he was relieved when he felt the ship suddenly jolt forward.

  "Lord Uther, we must call for reinforcements immediately." A person in a purple robe that had appeared together with the other mages spoke towards the expedition leader who was watching the bizarre phenomena around them getting worse, a few droplets of blood staining his grey hair.

  "Go, Rommath. Bring whoever you can!" Uther agreed and the figure with a symbol of a golden eye embroidered on his robe vanished in a flash of magic.

  Meanwhile, the inquisitor watched with awe how the sails of their ship had been strengthened with magic and harsh winds were blowing into them, how tall waves slammed into their stern, propelling them forward with an unnatural speed.

  But that was nothing against the speed they were about to experience.

  Kael Gull felt a sudden burst of acceleration and had to lean onto his back foot to prevent himself from making a step back. Swiftly, he turned his head to find out what was causing their momentum to climb even higher and his eyes stayed glued to two thick pillars of water propped against their ship. These were two giant hands that appeared from a violent vortex of water which exploded behind their backs. The pair began to push their ship with greater speed, as it nearly lost contact with the surface of the sea below them. They were only inches away from truly flying.

  "If it isn't the Grand Magus himself!" Uther the Lightbringer showed a smirk on his face despite being faced with the impossible situation, when he saw the one responsible for summoning the giant figure made of water pushing the ship.

  "I have already told you to call me simply Antonidas and a mage. . . ."

  ". . . never repeats himself, I know. With your expertise, I am sure we will reach the bottom of this disaster in no time." Lord Uther looked much more at ease as more and more members of the Kirin Tor appeared on the ship, many of them were individuals able to shake the mountains on their own.

  "Of that . .. I am not sure." A troubled look replaced the amicable smile of the old man in a purple robe when his eyes switched from the half-materialized pillars of blood to the giant swirling red vortex forming on the island.

  Their brooding was accompanied by a loud explosion in the background and when they all turned to focus on the ship sailing next to them, they realized its stern had almost exploded with intense fires. The individual explosion was quickly replaced by a continuous string of smaller explosions which carried the high elven ship forward with even greater momentum than the Grand Magus Antonidas had managed with his summoned water elemental.

  Among the raging flames behind the stern of the high elven ship stood a tall person with long, blond hair that was almost merging with the violent flames just inches behind him. The inquisitor could almost feel the high elf's anger, his eyes not moving from the direction of the rapidly closing island.

  "Although his state of mind is understandable, I hope the prince will not blow himself up along with his ship due to his anger." Antonidas commented while controlling his water elemental to closely follow the high elven ship, which flew like a meteor towards the Isle of Quel'Danas.

  "I see Magister Belo'vir is there with him, they should be alright." Uther calmed everyone down and the attention of all returned to the giant red circle that unnaturally hung above a luxurious ruin which served a purpose which was not known to Kael Gull.

  Staring at the ruined palace, the original place of the disaster, everyone held back their breath when they saw a giant figure slowly standing up, the red vortex matching the color of the entity's skin.

  "What is that? Is that a demon?" Someone asked, but no one answered. There was no need.

  The horned giant was many heads taller than an ordinary man and held a giant sword in its hand, it reminded Keal of the one he had destroyed right after landing in this world, but for some reason, its aura was no longer just icy cold, but imbued with blood, with a notorious symbol of Khorne glaring near its hilt.