Stormwind Wizard God-Chapter 642: The Tide Turns

The orcs were absolutely seething when they first witnessed the sluggish human advance. Despite their chieftains declaring humans temporary allies, the green-skinned warriors still harbored deep contempt for these pink-skinned weaklings, convinced they were fighting like pampered nobles at their first real battle—all show and no bite.

But by Thrall's hammer, how quickly the orcs' tune changed!

If the orc battle line resembled a chaotic tavern brawl with zombies constantly punching through their defenses, then the human formation was nothing short of a merciless meat grinder—efficient, relentless, and absolutely terrifying.

Tens of thousands of Scourge soldiers crashed into the human lines like a tsunami of rotting flesh against an immovable mountain. The sound was thunderous, the sight spectacular, but the result? About as effective as spitting into a hurricane.

The most menacing gargoyles never even got their claws dirty. Duke and his cadre of archmages swatted them from the sky like oversized mosquitoes before they could complete their swooping death dives. Stone fragments rained down like a grotesque hailstorm as the creatures exploded mid-flight, their remains creating impromptu grave markers across the battlefield.

Next came the cave demons—hulking monstrosities that hurled venomous spiders like the world's most disgusting artillery barrage, causing considerable chaos among the Alliance ranks.

But "considerable chaos" was where their success story ended.

These behemoths might as well have painted bullseyes on their backs. Their massive frames made them sitting ducks for every mage and marksman within a mile radius. Even the mightiest cave demon would be reduced to smoldering paste after eating eight or ten fireballs—talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place, except the rock was magical fire and the hard place was death.

Arthas's undead horde was melting away faster than snow in the Barrens. The entire massive black tide was being systematically strangled and pulverized from both flanks like grain between millstones.

"This cannot be!" Through his soul link, Arthas felt his army's death throes like a dagger to his undead heart. Spinning around, he beheld the approaching Crusade in all their terrible glory—a sight like dawn breaking over the darkest night, driving shadows before it.

The blazing crimson radiance nearly seared his pale, aristocratically handsome corpse-face clean off.

"Kel'Thuzad! Hold the northern flank!" he commanded with desperate authority.

But wait—that's not right. Let me fix this.

"Frostwhisper! Hold the northern flank!"

Having sensed the demise of Dark Master Gandling, Kel'Thuzad had long suspected this Alliance force was no mere rabble to be swept aside. Unfortunately, as the Lich King's chosen champion, Arthas's commands carried the weight of absolute authority—you don't tell your undead overlord "thanks, but no thanks."

The Lich King Ner'zhul, reduced to pure malevolent spirit and imprisoned within his icy throne, certainly wouldn't grant Kel'Thuzad permission to avoid this particular suicide mission.

Poor Les could only gather his warlock underlings and lesser liches, marshaling hordes of shambling undead for what was shaping up to be a spectacular last stand.

"Kael'thas! Abendis!" Duke's pointing finger carried the authority of a battlefield general.

Though Kael'thas held the blood of royalty, having sworn allegiance to the Alliance made him Duke's to command. At Duke's gesture, the elf prince—crowned with dancing arcane flames like a living constellation—teleported directly into Les Frostwhisper's path.

As an undead creature, Les possessed an instinctive revulsion toward fire that ran bone-deep.

Becoming a lich meant severing all connections to flame magic forever—a cruel irony for creatures who so desperately needed warmth.

Kael'thas blazed like a miniature sun incarnate while Les Frostwhisper embodied endless winter's bite. At first glance, their magical elements—fire and frost—clashed like oil and water, two completely incompatible forces being violently smashed together.

Endless streams of fire and frost elementals materialized from their respective planes, taking magical form before hurling themselves at their opposites in spectacular displays of destruction.

In moments, a full-scale elemental war erupted.

Credit where credit's due—Les Frostwhisper, being one of Scholomance's premier bosses, packed serious magical firepower. His Frost Arrow barrage had Kael'thas dancing around like a cat on hot coals, the prince's combat inexperience showing like a beacon.

Watching Kael'thas's performance, Duke wanted to facepalm hard enough to leave permanent handprints.

Sure, they were both Archmages, but how could some upstart undead compare to legitimate elven royalty? The problem was Kael'thas had about as much real dueling experience as a tavern patron had sobriety—which is to say, practically none. The prince was getting schooled harder than a first-year apprentice.

"Just because you're good with fire doesn't mean you have to use nothing BUT fire! Mix it up and teach this frozen fossil a lesson!" Duke muttered under his breath.

Those famously sharp elven ears caught every word.

Suddenly, enlightenment struck Kael'thas like a lightning bolt.

The former Earl Les raised his skeletal hands—now mere bone where flesh once lived—preparing to weave another spell, when the unexpected happened. A massive fireball detonated roughly five meters from his position.

Anyone watching might have assumed the ice arrow deflection caused a simple fireball explosion. But hidden within that blazing sphere, a purple-blue gleam flickered ominously. An arcane bomb, packed with enough magical energy to level a small building, suddenly accelerated beyond the speed of thought and screamed toward a point less than two meters from Les before detonating against his magical defenses.

Violent arcane forces surged in all directions, catching the lich completely off-guard. Though he absorbed the magical damage, nothing could prepare him for the devastating shockwave that erupted omnidirectionally like an angry god's fist.

Miserable Les saw only a flash of purple-blue arcane brilliance. The explosion's shockwave first compressed his translucent ice shield into a hemispherical dent, then launched his entire body skyward like a catapult stone. freewebnσvel.cøm

Liches pride themselves on supernatural composure and calculation.

However, the arcane explosion's chaotic energies interfered catastrophically with his teleportation magic—a bit like trying to thread a needle during an earthquake.

The result? He crashed earthward like a meteor, the tremendous impact blasting a crater in the battlefield's carpet of flesh, blood, and shattered bone. Surrounding gore exploded upward and outward, raining down like the world's most disgusting precipitation.

Les lay grievously wounded in his impromptu grave.

His once-magnificent purple robes hung in tatters, and even his reinforced finger bones showed hairline fractures from the impact. Before he could claw his way from the crater, a massive golden shadow materialized at the pit's edge.

Golden radiance, a pristine white-and-gold destrier, and sacred power radiating pure righteousness.

One man, one mount.

Yet together they projected the overwhelming presence of an entire cavalry charge bearing down like the wrath of the Light itself.

Before Les could process what was happening, he felt his face growing uncomfortably warm—then immediately experienced the full destructive glory of holy energy contained within Abendis's Hammer of Holy Light as it connected with his skull.

"AHHHHHHH——!" The lich's voice had long since rotted away, but his soul's anguished shriek echoed across dimensions.

His hideous skull—stripped of all concealing flesh—exploded into countless bone shards under General Alfred Abendis's full-power strike, fragments scattering like deadly confetti across the battlefield.

Lich Les Frostwhisper—ELIMINATED!

Simultaneously, three additional warriors joined the epic confrontation between the Horde's four champions and Arthas.

Mograine, Antonidas, and...

"Edmund Duke!" Both Orgrim and Arthas pronounced this name with the enthusiasm typically reserved for plague announcements.

Duke smiled serenely and raised one hand in casual greeting: "Beautiful day for a massacre, wouldn't you say?"

Thrall glanced at the death-shrouded sky above, its darkness thick enough to cut with an axe, and wondered if Duke had suffered recent head trauma affecting his weather perception.

Duke clasped his hands behind his back, completely ignoring Arthas's murderous glare, and approached Orgrim directly: "Neither of us intends to forgive past grievances—some wounds run too deep for healing. But for our peoples' futures, what say we collaborate just this once?"

Orgrim considered silently for several heartbeats: "Agreed."

A small human fist met an enormous orcish one in a brief, respectful tap—sealing an alliance forged in desperate necessity.