World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1 (10 page)

For the good of Azeroth, Odyn decided to take matters into his own hands. He would create an elite army of his design, one that he could call on to protect the world should the need ever arise. To fill the ranks of this fighting force, Odyn would look to the mighty
vrykul. He had always admired their innate courage and strength. He saw the vrykul, above all other titan-forged, as the perfect expression of the warrior spirit.

Upon returning to Ulduar, Tyr and the other keepers demanded that Odyn abandon his foolish plans. Yet their words had no effect on the Prime Designate. Odyn was single-minded in his focus and unbending in his ideas of what was right. He invited the other keepers to help him create his army. When none stepped forward to join his cause, Odyn announced he would pursue his quest without them.

Odyn secured one of Ulduar’s wings to act as the base for his new army. To permanently separate it from the rest of the fortress and from the other keepers, he called on the titan-forged sorceress
Helya. Over the ages, Odyn had come to see her as his adopted daughter. Helya wove a great spell to encase the keeper’s stronghold. Then, focusing all of her power, she ripped the colossal chunk of Ulduar from the earth and lifted it into the cloudy skies. In time, this floating citadel would become known as the
Halls of Valor.

From atop his fortress, Odyn bellowed out a proclamation to all vrykul. Those who proved their bravery by dying glorious deaths in battle would live again in the Halls of Valor. Their spirits would be transported to the fortress and given mighty new storm-forged bodies. These
champions—these
Valarjar—would serve as Azeroth’s foremost guardians. Their deeds would live on in the hearts of all
titan-forged forever after.

All that remained was to find a means of ferrying the spirits of the dead to the Halls of Valor. For this, Odyn studied the energies that permeated the
Shadowlands. The knowledge he gained would allow him to transform some vrykul into spectral beings known as the
Val’kyr. These wraithlike servants would travel between the Shadowlands and the physical world, guiding the souls of worthy vrykul to the Halls of Valor. Yet those who became Val’kyr would be cursed to live as phantom beings for all eternity.

No vrykul volunteered for the grim task of becoming a Val’kyr, and thus Odyn decided he would create his servants by force. Helya admonished the keeper for his willingness to turn the titan-forged into slaves against their will. The argument between her and Odyn grew so heated that the two nearly came to blows. In the end, Helya warned that she would return the Halls of Valor to Ulduar if Odyn did not change his mind.

Odyn saw Helya’s disobedience as a threat not only to his plans, but to the future safety of Azeroth itself. Blinded by his dreams of what the Halls of Valor could become, he struck out at the sorceress. Odyn shattered her physical form and twisted her spirit into the first of the Val’kyr. Helya’s howls of pain and anger rumbled across the surface of Azeroth and pierced into the very heart of the Shadowlands.

This violent transformation would forever darken Helya, but her torment was not finished. Though she loathed Odyn for what he had done to her, she found herself compelled to obey his will. Under Odyn’s command, she set out to transform unwilling vrykul into the cursed Val’kyr.

For ages, Helya and her fellow Val’kyr brought the souls of heroic vrykul to the Halls of Valor. The citadel became filled with storm-infused Valarjar. Odyn trained and empowered each of these warriors. He had no remorse for breaking from the keepers, or for transforming Helya into the first Val’kyr. In Odyn’s mind, everything he had done was for the safety of Azeroth and in honor of the great
Pantheon.

T
he keepers went about their duties on Azeroth, unaware of a new threat that was taking shape in the distant reaches of the Great Dark.

Sargeras, having broken all ties with the Pantheon, meditated on the fate of the universe in isolation. His fear that the
void lords had already corrupted other
world-souls consumed him. As doubt and despair continued twisting the titan’s every thought, he became more certain than ever that creation itself was fatally flawed. Finally, he concluded that the only way to spare the universe was to purge it in fire. Thus his grand
Burning Crusade would begin.

To accomplish this Burning Crusade, Sargeras required a vast force of unquenchable rage. He knew of only one place that held such power and potential:
Mardum, the Plane of Banishment.

Over the ages, the prison had become bloated with fel magic and vengeful demons. Their presence had warped Mardum, transforming it into a realm of nightmare. Torrents of fel energy ceaselessly bombarded the prison’s walls, bathing the captive demons in a roiling sea of volatile magic.

Sargeras quelled his remaining apprehension and tore the prison asunder, spilling its wrathful denizens into the
Great Dark Beyond. The subsequent explosion of fel magic was powerful beyond even what the fallen titan had imagined. Violent energies enveloped Sargeras, surging through his veins and searing his very soul. His eyes burst in gouts of emerald fire. Fel volcanoes ignited across his once-noble form, splitting his skin apart and revealing an endless furnace of blistering hate.

Yet despite these horrific physical changes, Sargeras’s mind remained locked on his one all-consuming purpose. To prevent the void lords from possessing creation, life itself had to be extinguished.

In shattering the prison, Sargeras had ruptured the boundary between the Great Dark and the
Twisting Nether. A monstrous celestial maw, limned in a storm of emerald fire, had ripped through the fabric of reality. It would remain a scar on creation—smoldering proof of Sargeras’s madness—for all eternity.

Demons of every shape and size poured into the physical universe from this rift, howling in triumph at their release. Sargeras imbued the ravenous masses with his power, uniting them as one in an inferno of fel magic. Though many demons had previously tapped into the volatile energies of the Nether, none had ever experienced the pure might and rage found in Sargeras’s fel. Some of the creatures grew in size and stature. Still others felt new cunning and intelligence unfold in their minds.

By this point, Sargeras had learned more about the nature of demons—including how to permanently destroy their spirits. He offered a simple pact in exchange for the demons’ newfound power: fight at his command, or be extinguished. It was not a difficult choice.

To thwart the void lords, Sargeras unleashed his new army—his
Burning Legion—upon the innumerable worlds of the Great Dark. Never before had the forces of evil been united in such numbers. Sargeras wielded enough power to make disobedience all but unthinkable. None would dream of challenging him, but more importantly, his minions grew to delight in their role as agents of extinction.

The Burning Legion fell upon its first world. Though it did not contain a slumbering titan, it was a world that had been ordered by the Pantheon in ages past. Sargeras’s forces incinerated the mortal civilizations that dwelled there, wiping out dozens of sentient species. When the
constellar whom the Pantheon had charged to oversee the world arrived, Sargeras himself annihilated the celestial being.

Aggramar was the first to learn of the constellar’s demise. As more news of the Burning Legion’s atrocities reached him, he hunted down the demonic army. Aggramar arrived just in time to witness the Legion scouring yet another world, and he saw the twisted, fire-wreathed being leading it: his mentor and greatest friend, Sargeras.

Aggramar was stunned. He demanded an explanation from Sargeras. The former champion offered none, only declaring that his Burning Crusade was the sole means to purify the universe. Anyone who stood against him, Sargeras added, would burn in the fires of his Legion as well.

Knowing that he could not sway Sargeras with words, Aggramar challenged his former mentor to single combat. Before the watching eyes of the demon masses, the two greatest warriors the universe had ever known came to blows.

Aggramar soon found himself outmatched. Like all
titans, he was uniquely susceptible to fel magic. Sargeras’s ferocious assaults shattered Aggramar’s defenses and sent him reeling in agony. In a final desperate counterattack, Aggramar summoned all the power at his command and struck at Sargeras.

Their two blades met, igniting a furious explosion of fel and arcane power. When the torrent of warring energies finally subsided, Sargeras and Aggramar saw that both of their weapons had been shattered.

Heavily wounded by the blast, Aggramar retreated from the battle and returned to the rest of the Pantheon. Disbelief gripped the other titans as they learned what had happened. The thought of their most trusted and noble warrior falling to darkness shook their faith to the core. The Pantheon could not fathom how to stop such a threat, yet they agreed they could not sit idly by. Girded for war, the combined might of the Pantheon confronted Sargeras and his unholy Legion near a world named
Nihilam.

Aman’Thul called out to Sargeras, pleading with him to abandon his mad Burning Crusade. He told Sargeras of Azeroth, a fledgling
world-soul with more potential than any of the Pantheon had ever seen, a being strong enough to defeat the void lords in due time. Sargeras listened carefully but was unmoved.

Despite his earlier battle with Sargeras, Aggramar believed that something noble still lingered deep in the former champion’s heart. As a last resort, he laid down his arms and approached the fallen titan. Aggramar recounted tales of their glorious battles against demons, reminding Sargeras of the sacred oaths they had sworn to protect creation. But Sargeras was set in his ways. Nothing the Pantheon could say—nothing even his cherished protégé could say—would ever change his mind.

With a howl of rage and sorrow, Sargeras struck Aggramar down, his ruined fel blade nearly cleaving the titan in two.

Infuriated by this unthinkable murder, the Pantheon launched an all-out assault on Sargeras and his Burning Legion. Stars withered and died as the battle raged across the cosmos, scarring vast stretches of reality. Nihilam, known thereafter as the Doom World, became warped and twisted by the apocalyptic conflict. The titans of the Pantheon wielded powers incomprehensible to mortal minds, yet even they could not overcome Sargeras’s fel-fueled might.

The fallen titan decimated the Pantheon members with fel fire until he had broken their will to fight. To seal their demise, Sargeras summoned a massive fel storm that would consume their bodies and souls alike. Yet just as the furious onslaught of energy washed over the defeated titans,
Norgannon made one last attempt to stave off oblivion.

Norgannon bent the raw energies of the universe to his will, weaving a protective shroud around each of the Pantheon titans’ spirits and launching them into the Great Dark. While the titans’ disembodied souls hurtled through the cosmos, Sargeras’s fel storm obliterated what remained of their physical forms.

Unaware that the titans’ spirits had survived, Sargeras declared the Burning Legion victorious. The Pantheon was no more, and he now had tantalizing clues about a powerful world-soul called Azeroth. Yet though Sargeras had learned the name of this nascent titan, its whereabouts remained a mystery. Nonetheless, without the Pantheon to oppose him, he knew he would find the world-soul in time.

And he knew he would have to do so before the void lords did.

T
he Burning Legion had triumphed over the Pantheon, and Sargeras moved to rally even more demons to his cause. Yet the fight with the Pantheon had exposed a flaw in his seemingly unstoppable army—one that he was determined to remedy.

For all of Sargeras’s vast power and intellect, he could not direct his entire army at once. Demons were vicious and bloodthirsty, but most lacked strategic thinking. Much of the Legion had fallen needlessly to the Pantheon. Sargeras wanted cunning and tactically minded commanders to join his side, and he had seen a place from which to harvest such servants: a world called
Argus.

Argus was home to the highly advanced
eredar, a race far more intelligent than any other Sargeras had encountered. The eredar hungered for knowledge above all else. By attaining it, they believed they could shape the universe into a better and more benevolent place.