When Josh contacted Abbendis, he was in the Barrens of Kalimdor, leading his army to wipe out the remaining centaurs and quilboars in the area.
Among his troops, the vanguard was made up of large numbers of tauren warriors.
After years of effort, Abbendis had almost united all the tauren tribes across Azeroth. Only the Highmountain tauren of the Broken Isles—cautious because of the Tomb of Sargeras. By showing respect, offering large supplies of food, and helping them resist outside enemies, Abbendis soon won over these naturally gentle giants with his "personal charm."
Riding on a tall kodo, he watched as the fully armored tauren heavy cavalry thundered forward, easily scattering a centaur army tens of thousands strong. A satisfied smile spread across his face.
Though in numbers centaurs and quilboars greatly outmatched the tauren, anyone who knew these races would understand who made the better ally. The tauren might be fewer, but their strength and quality were far greater. The reason they had long been suppressed by centaurs and quilboars was not weakness, but the cultural break caused by their time under the mogu empire. Their poor metalworking left many tauren warriors without proper weapons. No matter how strong their bodies were, without good gear they could not show their full power.
That all changed once Abbendis brought them under his banner. Through his trade with Josh, he gained large amounts of modern alloy armor and weapons, far lighter and stronger than Azeroth's normal metal gear. Soon, tauren warriors and their kodo mounts were clad in heavy armor and armed with lances, maces, and other brutal weapons. Once this kind of cavalry charged, even ten times more centaurs could not stand against them.
As for the famed centaur mounted archery—Abbendis didn't care at all. Their crude weapons couldn't pierce tauren heavy armor. Yes, centaurs were faster, but could they outrun dragonriders in the sky? Even Josh had spare proto-dragons to trade with Quaritch, so how could Abbendis, the local ruler, not have any?
His Dragonmaw & vrykul proto-dragon riders already numbered over ten thousand, the strongest air force in Azeroth outside of the five dragonflights. In the original timeline, the Dragonmaw were never this strong—not because they couldn't tame more dragons, but because they couldn't feed them. A full-grown proto-dragon could eat a cow a day.
Abbendis, however, had no problem. With Josh's support, he had built large modern farms and ranches across Kalimdor, stocked with the best breeds of livestock and crops gathered from many worlds.
Not only was there more than enough meat every day for his armies, Abbendis even had surplus to export to the Seven Kingdoms, earning vast amounts of gold.
The proto-dragon riders, like the tauren cavalry, were also fully clad in heavy armor. Yet the armor barely slowed them, for the raw strength of these ancient dragons was overwhelming.
Besides the vrykul's heavily armored proto-dragon riders, many human riders on wyverns formed a light air cavalry around them. With land and air forces working together, not only the centaurs but even the wild beasts of the Barrens scattered in panic.
"Josh, why are you contacting me now?" sensing the call, Abbendis ordered his lieutenant to set up camp, then opened the link.
"Something happened, so I want to speed up our plan," Josh said. Facing the child he had watched grow up, he held nothing back and told him everything in detail.
"…Seriously? You're jumping this far so suddenly?" Abbendis swallowed hard after hearing Josh's plan to reach for Azeroth's world-soul, even the Titans themselves.
But the idea that draining the world-soul could weaken Azeroth didn't trouble him much. From a ruler's view, Azeroth's star-soul wasn't really a blessing. Compared to Pandora, Azeroth was simply too strong—so strong that even a wound bleeding could create a thriving magical empire, like the Well of Eternity and the mighty Highborne.
Few knew a darker truth: when a Titan fully awakens, its appearance could mean disaster for all life on the planet, like a god descending. Abbendis understood this well. To him, Azeroth's world-soul was not something to cherish, and he had no wish to see it awaken into a Titan towering over them.
Unlike Josh, blessed by Tiamat's favor, Abbendis had received nothing from Azeroth itself. Humanity was never the world's chosen race, and Azeroth never showed the selfless will of Tiamat, who would sacrifice herself for her children.
"Times have changed… don't you want to become a true Celestial?" Josh smiled. "If we succeed, even devouring Sargeras's essence is possible. His fallen Titan power could be yours."
"Sargeras's power… could I really?" Abbendis asked, stunned. Josh had often told him of the fallen Titan's glory, of how he was the strongest of the Pantheon. In Abbendis's mind, Sargeras was beyond the reach of mortals.
But now Josh was telling him that he too might wield that power. It was almost too much to believe.
But even while he found it hard to believe, deep down Abbendis began to feel a surge of excitement.
Yes… just as Josh said—if he could truly become a Celestial, then what were the Seven Human Kingdoms to him? Nothing but dust.
"Tell me, what do you want me to do?" Abbendis steadied his heart and asked Josh seriously.
"…Send your army to the Broken Isles," Josh said with a solemn face.
"The Broken Isles?" Abbendis's expression grew heavier. Like with Sargeras, Josh had always warned him of how dangerous the Isles were. Though his power had grown vast in recent years and he already knew the Isles' location, he had never dared set foot there.
Stepping onto that land too rashly could draw the gaze of Queen Azshara from the Maelstrom, and Medivh, the Guardian—whose will was already tainted by the dark Titan Sargeras.
But thinking it over, with the scale of his current power, it was likely Medivh already had his eye on him anyway.
"Sending troops to the Isles is fine, but you must understand—my strength is still far from those great powers you spoke of… even if I use the mechanical legions," Abbendis admitted with some hesitation.
If his forces had any weakness, it was in the realm of top-tier champions, especially magic. Over the years he had lured many mages with riches and resources, but most were only ordinary spellcasters. Not a single legendary mage stood in his ranks. In this, Abbendis was even weaker than Josh.
"I'll arrange for several powerful champions to aid you. If the situation turns hopeless, they'll get you out alive first," Josh replied, already knowing Abbendis's concern. After a brief moment of thought, he opened his eyes and spoke firmly.
"In that case, that's for the best," Abbendis nodded, finally relaxing a little. "Then I'll begin the preparations now?"
"Yes. Start preparing. I'll send people to support you," Josh agreed.
With that, the communication ended. Abbendis quickly led his army, fresh from crushing the centaurs, back to his northern fortress and began massive war preparations.
His movements did not go unnoticed. The night elves of Ashenvale, just to the north, were quick to take note.
For a human lord to suddenly appear in Kalimdor, gather the native tribes led by the tauren, and expand his territory so boldly—if the night elves had failed to notice, then they would have deserved extinction.
But at this time, Tyrande was still the gentle, cautious Priestess. Since humans had done little more than set up a few outposts and trade posts near the Barrens and Ashenvale border, without any hint of attack or fortification, she had no reason to take direct action against Abbendis.
Not acting, however, did not mean ignoring.
Every campaign Abbendis's legions launched across the Barrens and into the lands of Kolkar, the night elves watched closely. Druids kept their eyes on him from afar, worried he might suddenly strike into Ashenvale.
Kolkar—what later, in another timeline, became Durotar.
Durotar, the name Thrall gave this land after leading the orcs to Kalimdor. But before the orcs ever set foot here, it had always been the home of the quilboars and the centaurs.
The name Kolkar came from the Kolkar centaur clan, the original rulers of that land.
The force Abbendis had just destroyed was the last remnant of the Kolkar still lingering on the clan's borders.
Now, with both the Barrens and Kolkar lands cleared of resistance, and the Echo Isles in the southeast also under his control, Abbendis threw himself into war preparations. The night elves watching from the shadows grew tense.
To the west lay fertile Mulgore, which Abbendis had granted to the tauren as their permanent homeland—one of the main reasons the tauren swore such fierce loyalty to him. To the south stretched the barren Thousand Needles, offering little reason for him to expand there. Beyond that was Tanaris, a desert home to trolls but with little real value.
By that logic, the only truly tempting territory left near Abbendis was night elf land.
So when Archdruid Fandral Staghelm heard the news, he ignored Tyrande's pleas for restraint. He ordered large forces north into Ashenvale, preparing for war.
But before the night elf armies could even arrive, word came from the front. Abbendis's troops had not marched north into Ashenvale at all. They had gone to sea.
Gone to sea…
Fandral found himself embarrassed. Yet he refused to admit fault. He ordered the army to keep marching, and when they reached Silverwing Outpost, he commanded them to build fortifications along the border. The humans might not be attacking now, but what about the future? Better to be ready than sorry. Even Tyrande could not argue against such caution.
Still, after a sharp and tense meeting with Fandral, Tyrande returned to the Temple of the Moon—only to find an unexpected visitor waiting.
Maiev Shadowsong, leader of the Watchers, the third great faction of the night elves.
The other two were Tyrande's Sisterhood of Elune, with the Sentinels as their main force, and the Cenarion Circle of druids, officially led by Malfurion Stormrage, but in truth managed by his foremost disciple, Fandral Staghelm, since Malfurion spent so much time in the Emerald Dream.
The Watchers, unlike the other two, rarely involved themselves in daily governance. They acted more like the intelligence and secret enforcers of night elf society.
"Maiev? A rare guest. Why have you come to me?" Tyrande asked, surprised.
Old grudges from the War of the Ancients had long kept their relationship strained. Under normal circumstances, Maiev would never come to her directly. For her to appear now could mean only one thing—something urgent.
"I've uncovered the truth," Maiev said, her voice muffled under the Watcher's helm. "That human lord's real target… is the Broken Isles."
"What? The Broken Isles!" Tyrande's face changed at once, her calm shattering in shock.