After a while, Tarim's voice continued, this time sounding much weaker than before. Golganneth knew this was not a pretense; this ancient god had reached the end of his rope.
"My body is connected to all the planes of Shirethe; I have a symbiotic relationship with these worlds. When I die, this world will also die."
"You don't need to worry about that," Golganneth said, not wanting to explain.
Tarim's body completely isolated him from the outside world. Golganneth had no idea what the situation had been like outside for the past half month, but he figured that with his newly recognized "uncle," Aiden, in charge, things probably weren't too bad. Perhaps everything was ready, just waiting for him to return and celebrate.
However, Golganneth also knew that what Tarim said was likely true.
He had seen many ancient gods, and he had destroyed and sealed many as well. Some ancient gods of planets were symbiotic with the planet itself; killing them could cause all life on the planet to die. Generally, when the Pantheon discovered ancient gods, they would assess the situation. In such cases, they would usually choose to seal them. Only those ancient gods that had a purely parasitic relationship with the planet would be directly eliminated.
In fact, Tarim was not exaggerating. Since it began to struggle, causing widespread earthquakes in Shirethe, various anomalies had emerged in the past half month. There were large-scale ground fissures and landslides, as well as abnormal plant deaths. Birds and beasts on the ground and in the sky were restless, and there were even scenes of large numbers of sea fish rushing onto the beach and dying in the sun.
Especially in the past few days, as Tarim's life signs weakened, these anomalies became more and more exaggerated, affecting the entire world.
However, the Pantheon had a complete plan for dealing with ancient gods. Golganneth and Aggramar had seen such situations many times. It would be slightly difficult for ordinary Titans to resolve such situations, but for a Pantheon Titan like Golganneth, resolving the mess after Tarim's death was very simple—just introduce imaginary energy and transform the planet!
As an enemy, the ancient god was clearly aware of the Pantheon's methods. Imaginary energy was the most fundamental energy for constructing the entire universe. It could not only create all things but also greatly enhance the power of the ancient gods. In Azeroth, N'Zoth had planned to eliminate his nemesis, the Pantheon and the Burning Legion, and the most crucial part of this was to control the imaginary energy release device.
Only after absorbing a massive amount of imaginary energy would the ancient gods have the conditions to counterattack the Pantheon.
Tarim knew that Golganneth would definitely use such means to transform Shirethe, a planet that was withering due to its decay.
It let out a low laugh, "Then I wish you success!"
"Of course, I will succeed! It's a pity that you won't be able to see that day!" Golganneth sneered.
"Hehe… he…" A series of eerie laughter echoed in Tarim's stomach, the sound intermittent and soon completely disappearing.
Golganneth found himself sensing the outside world again.
This meant—Tarim was dead!
—
"I'm back!"
In the base camp of Mount Vientiane, Aggramar had just seen off the moon god Lahr, who represented the mortals and had come to negotiate. As soon as he returned, a loud and vigorous voice rang out in front of him.
"Golganneth?" Aggramar immediately breathed a sigh of relief.
As the military commander of the Pantheon, if he really left Golganneth, this "crown prince," in Shirethe, then he probably wouldn't have to return to the Pantheon. Although he had great faith in Aiden's plan to deal with Tarim, the person executing the plan was too important, and coupled with the fact that he couldn't contact him for a long time, Aggramar had been worried these past few days, fearing that something unexpected would happen.
Fortunately, everything went smoothly. Golganneth not only returned but also brought back the victory of killing an extremely troublesome ancient god.
After Aggramar expressed his concern, he spoke about Lahr's purpose. In fact, as soon as he mentioned the name, Golganneth had guessed the general idea. Tarim's death must have caused Shirethe to wither. If the Pantheon did not take any measures, the mortals on this planet would face a true doomsday catastrophe—after the planet withered, unless they could leave this world, no one would be able to survive.
But it was impossible to transport billions of creatures off the planet; even if all the arcanists in Shirethe went to work on the teleportation array, they wouldn't have the ability. In the end, Lahr could only turn to the Pantheon for help. As allies, it was certainly a good thing that they killed Tarim, but they couldn't let a good thing turn into a bad thing, leading to the death of countless lives, right?
Of course, Aggramar was well aware of this. When Lahr left, Golganneth had not yet come out, so he could not guarantee anything. Now that Golganneth was back, everything in Shirethe was no longer a problem.
"Without further ado, let's summon the imaginary energy device!"
Golganneth no longer wanted to stay any longer. He teleported to the moon, informed Lahr, and then used his Pantheon Titan authority to summon the imaginary device.
The vast imaginary energy, under his summons, crossed countless planes and distances, directly descending on Shirethe, repairing those damaged models due to the death of the symbiotic ancient god—including the Shirethe planet itself and the symbiotic elemental planes, mountains, seas, rivers, vegetation, and animals.
However, Gorganneth was a bit puzzled. The damage to Shirethe was not too severe, yet the amount of void energy he requested was more than double the expected amount.
"Could I have miscalculated?" Gorganneth wondered, but he quickly dismissed the thought.
He had used void energy to modify and repair planets countless times, with the usual estimation error being only a few percent, or even a few per thousand, ten-thousand, or lower. Never had it been as outrageous as today.
Someone must have intercepted the void energy!
He scrutinized the Pantheon's enemies, and the suspects were quickly narrowed down—only the Burning Legion and the Old Gods knew how to utilize void energy.
Now that the Old Gods had been eliminated, and a portion of the Burning Legion led by Kil'jaeden had not yet left. It must be those demons!
Gorganneth cursed his own carelessness, having forgotten that the Pantheon and the Burning Legion were enemies of over twenty thousand years, simply because they were temporarily at peace. He also forgot that they came here to fight in the first place.
With so much void energy, the greater demons of the Burning Legion would surely be greatly strengthened. This could potentially erase the gap in high-end power between them, or even put them at a disadvantage because of the many Titans who had died fighting Dimensius and the Old Gods he summoned, leaving them greatly weakened!
"No, this is intolerable! They must be taught a lesson!" Gorganneth's heart was filled with the anger of being fooled, and he wished he could drag out the cunning Kil'jaeden and beat him up right then and there!
No wonder that guy is called "The Deceiver," he's just too cunning!
The more Gorganneth thought about it, the angrier he became. He flew directly over the Outlands, to the Burning Legion's encampment, and roared, "Kil'jaeden, you despicable villain!"
His title was "The Roarer," and this roar not only echoed throughout the entire Burning Legion camp, but even resonated throughout the Outlands.
The leaders of the Shirethe Alliance at Kadar Post also heard it, of course. They knew it was Gorganneth's voice. High Priest Zaxxarius looked worried. At this moment, others with quicker minds also thought of the same thing: Were the Pantheon and the Burning Legion about to fight again?
Last time, Aiden, with his powerful strength, acted as a referee, preventing the conflict between the two sides from affecting mortals at all. The struggle between the two sides also temporarily ceased due to the revival of the Old Gods. Unexpectedly, as soon as Gorganneth returned, he reignited the war.
This time, Aiden had already left, and no one else was qualified to mediate and set limits for the two sides. If the Burning Legion and the Pantheon really fought, the disaster facing Shirethe might not be any easier than the planet's death—it might even be more severe!
The person who was publicly scolded—Kil'jaeden—was in the Burning Legion's camp.
He was simply baffled. He was handling official business properly, arranging for the legion's demons to evacuate, when he was inexplicably scolded by Gorganneth for no reason!
Gorganneth calling him a "despicable villain" was not entirely wrong. Kil'jaeden was intelligent and extremely cunning, best at playing behind-the-scenes conspiracies, often making his enemies suffer and even be annihilated without using direct force.
For example, the massacre of the draenei by the orcs more than twenty years ago was orchestrated by him behind the scenes. He, Archimonde, and the prophet Velen were the highest leaders of Argus more than twenty thousand years ago. The three were as close as brothers, and together they brought the eredar civilization to its peak.
Later, the fallen dark titan Sargeras found them, promising them the power to conquer countless worlds in the universe. Archimonde and Kil'jaeden were immediately tempted and quickly swore allegiance to Sargeras, while the prophet Velen did not approve and eventually led his people away from Argus with the help of the naaru, beginning a journey of wandering that lasted tens of thousands of years.
Archimonde and Kil'jaeden both deeply felt betrayed by their brother, so they used the power of the Burning Legion to spare no effort in pursuing and killing these people led by the prophet Velen, who called themselves draenei (eredar for: exiles) and traitors.
When Kil'jaeden discovered the draenei who had moved to Draenor, he did not personally appear. He relied on several projections to manipulate the orcs, allowing them to massacre the draenei.
If Kil'jaeden hadn't been busy catering to Sargeras—that is, Medivh, who was in Azeroth at the time—Prophet Velen and the remaining draenei would not have been able to hold out until joining the Alliance.
This action was just one of the most common, and even somewhat failed, of the many conspiracies used by Kil'jaeden.
The Burning Legion's ability to become the second largest force in the universe in just over twenty thousand years was thanks to Kil'jaeden's contribution, second only to the legion commander Sargeras.
His wisdom is the greatest guarantee for the Burning Legion to expand its territory.
However, intelligent people are extremely proud. He clearly had not schemed against the Pantheon, but was unjustly accused. How could he tolerate this?