The battle's ferocity far exceeded the expectations of both the Pantheon and the Burning Legion. In just half a day, both armies had lost over half their forces, while the Old Gods' minions seemed endlessly abundant. At this rate, they would likely be completely overwhelmed before long.
The situation for mortals was even more dire. Relying on a few demigods and a dozen or so legendary heroes to fight an Old God in its mature form like Y'Shaarj was nothing short of a pipe dream. Moreover, Y'Shaarj was positioned high in the sky, making it nearly impossible to reach with most attacks, while it could Unscrupulous relentlessly devastate the mortals on the ground with its long-range rays.
This was fundamentally a completely asymmetrical war!
Yet, the mortals had persevered for half a day—in theory, they shouldn't have lasted even half an hour.
The only reason the Shilias' coalition could hold out until now was due to the intervention of the Moon Goddess, Lahr.
She didn't descend in person or join the battle directly, but instead bestowed divine blessings on a large scale—the guardians were enveloped in a layer of faint moonlight. This moonlight could absorb three direct attacks from Y'Shaarj, while also amplifying their own power several times over, and even allowing them to break free from gravity, moving freely in the air.
Even if the blessing of three immune attacks was completely depleted, new lunar power would temporarily take them away from the battlefield, allowing them to return after recovering.
It was thanks to Lahr's blessings and protection that the guardians had the qualifications to confront Y'Shaarj.
Even so, it couldn't change the dominance of the Old God's forces. They didn't take long to find a breakthrough.
The "Avenger" Aggramar was powerful, but he faced even greater pressure. The siege by two Old Gods of his own level completely put him at a disadvantage. A long defense is bound to be broken, and he eventually revealed a flaw under the Old Gods' fierce attacks, and was ultimately seriously injured.
Subsequently, the serpent Old God, dissatisfied with the attack on Y'Shaarj, personally joined the attack on the mortals—this caused the defense line that the mortals had painstakingly maintained for half a day to be shattered in just a few minutes.
Khadgar sighed. Lahr's blessing on him had already been used twice, leaving only one last chance to be immune to attacks. The situation for the other guardians was even more precarious. The siege of Y'Shaarj and the serpent was simply impossible for mortals to resist. At this point, even if Lahr personally stood up, it would be difficult to protect them all.
He looked up at the sky. The sun, already turned red by Y'Shaarj, spewed out a burst of flames, and around him was a scorched red earth, baked by the flames.
"Is this my final moment?" Seeing this scene, which was exactly the same as the illusion in Karazhan, Khadgar muttered to himself.
In this situation, no one could save him.
However, this was already an expected scene. Compared to others, he only knew the scene of his death more than twenty years in advance. This had once caused him great trouble, but now he could face it calmly.
The temperature in the air was enough to bake the armor red-hot, and ordinary people simply couldn't survive for more than ten seconds. The guardians here were not ordinary people. Lahr's blessing could protect them from the terrifying high temperatures, but the greatest threat to them was not Lahr at all, but the serpent lurking in the sky.
The mental attacks it unleashed formed a storm, and the terrifying mental impact was enough to make people's heads explode. Once the will was lost, that would be the inevitable end. Several of them had already met such a fate. Their bodies were burning fiercely on the scorched earth.
Under such mental interference, almost no one could make any effective resistance.
Except for Khadgar—he had learned a spell from Aiden specifically to resist mental attacks. Even the mental impact released by an Old God of the serpent's level still had no obvious effect on him.
Khadgar raised his staff, preparing to help the others one last time.
A white light flashed, and all the surviving guardians around were sent to a safe place by a group teleportation spell.
Khadgar didn't know if this would be useful. If no one could defeat the Old Gods, sending them away would only slightly delay their time of death.
But that was no longer what he cared about, because he would take the first step before others.
"Huh?"
The serpent was originally the main force to deal with these guardians, but now these guardians were rescued from under its nose! And it wasn't Lahr who did it—they had been guarding against Lahr's direct intervention, but they didn't expect that a mortal would disrupt its plan!
The serpent didn't care too much. Anyway, these mortals were just turtles in a jar. They could escape for a while, but they couldn't escape the upcoming "Twilight Judgment." It only noticed this special mortal who had miscalculated its plan.
The serpent swam down from the sky, its huge head hanging to the ground. Its eyes stared at Khadgar, as if looking at prey waiting to be eaten in a cage: "Mortal, do you know what will happen to you next?"
"Let me think…" Khadgar frowned seriously, as if discussing life views with the serpent, rather than his own life and death, "I think you are very angry now, do you want to eat me? Then I have to remind you that my meat is not tasty."
"That's not up to you!" The serpent was very dissatisfied with Khadgar's nonchalant attitude. It felt that at this time, mortals should be weeping bitterly, kneeling and begging it to let them live. They should be desperate, fearful, and mentally broken.
The serpent had seen countless ugly appearances of mortals facing death, but Khadgar was once again unexpected.
"Do you think this layer of Lahr's blessing can save you from death? Hmph, how ridiculous! Then I will test whether your body is harder or my teeth are harder!"
The serpent spat out its tongue and rolled Khadgar into its mouth in one go.
The Moon God's blessing on Khadgar's body was already broken the moment it touched the serpent's teeth. He forced himself to calm down, because this was his own choice—if he didn't want to be swallowed by the serpent, he could at least choose to self-destruct before the other party bit down, but he didn't do so.
Khadgar didn't want to die without value. As a mage, he had been thinking about how to fight back.
The difference in power level between him and the serpent was too great, so great that it was like an ant trying to shake an elephant, completely impossible.
Khadgar felt that if there was a chance to injure or severely injure the serpent, it must be when he drilled into the other party's body—just like in the final battle of Ulduar, Aiden led them to kill the Old God Yogg-Saron from the inside.
He knew that with his own strength alone, even if the serpent directly exposed its weakest part in front of him, it would be impossible for him to replicate the miracle of killing Yogg-Saron. He only hoped to severely injure the other party, so that this serpent would know that even if he was not enough to fill the other party's teeth, he was still a hard bone, enough to break the other party's teeth!
Khadgar put a shield on himself so that the serpent's corrosive saliva would not harm his fragile body in the first place. At the same time, he cast a spell on himself so that he could see everything clearly in the serpent's mouth.
"Here, um, it's here." What he was staring at was a part of the snake's mouth closest to the brain—if the serpent's body structure was the same as that of an ordinary snake, he would have the possibility to hit the other party hard once.
One chance, he only had one chance.
Khadgar took a deep breath—and then his nose was filled with a sour and unpleasant smell.
"It's really terrible," Khadgar complained mockingly. This was not a good burial place. He didn't expect that he would die in such a bad place.
More than ten years ago, when Khadgar followed the expeditionary force across the Dark Portal to Draenor, he had fought with Deathwing—for a long time, the Black Dragon King was the strongest creature he had ever fought. Even Gruul, the Gronn demigod known as the "Dragon Slayer", was wantonly ravaged like a toy in front of Deathwing.
All of their attacks posed no threat to Deathwing. He was too powerful. Khadgar's strongest spell couldn't even leave a trace of trauma on the other party.
However, in the end, it was still Khadgar's key spell that startled Deathwing away—and that was just a small spell, a spell specifically aimed at the armor plates on Deathwing's body.
That was a battle won purely by wisdom.
There may be many mages in the universe who are stronger than Khadgar, but when it comes to the flexible use of spells, I am afraid that few people can compare with Khadgar.
He seized the fleeting opportunity in the serpent's mouth, first summoned the power of ice, creating a huge mass of solid ice, instantly freezing the serpent's throat.
When the other party felt uncomfortable and was about to fight back, Khadgar launched a real attack—groups of purple arcane energy constantly impacted a part of the serpent's upper jaw, and the fierce energy beat it into a bloody mess.
The serpent raised its head, wanting to howl in pain, but its throat was blocked, and a breath was held inside, which instead made the sharp edge of the solid ice stuck in its throat slash out countless deep and incomparable scars in the soft inside.
The serpent struggled frantically, and the pain in its throat and upper jaw made it almost want to die, but a few seconds later, a ball of arcane energy finally hit the serpent's fragile brain, and for a time, the pain that was ten times or a hundred times more intense than before overwhelmed the Old God's will. It issued a frantic mental shock, and the chaotic mental power formed a violent shock wave, crushing all the things within hundreds of miles around into powder.
The solid ice blocking its throat was finally shattered, which made it even more injured.
However, after the throat was clear, the serpent finally sprayed out the culprit who caused all this.
Khadgar's chest was like being punched several times by the strongest orc warrior, and he spat out a mouthful of blood in mid-air. Light reappeared in front of him, and he saw the red sun hanging high in the sky. Turning his head, he saw the scorched ground getting closer and closer. Then his eyes went dark and he lost all consciousness.