The message arrived just before dawn.
Leylin felt it before he heard it, a sharp disturbance in the arcane lattice woven through the Jeweled Estate. Moments later, Eliones' personal sigil flared to life at his side, its light urgent and uneven.
He was in the library when the projection formed, the priestess' expression taut, no trace of her usual amused composure.
"My scouts have returned," Eliones said without preamble. "They followed a trail of fel resonance far beyond Suramar's borders."
Leylin straightened at once.
"And?"
"They witnessed Gul'dan entering a tomb," she continued. "Deep underground. Shielded by ancient wards and thick fel interference. They couldn't determine which tomb it was but the scale of magic there…" Her jaw tightened. "It was not meant to be disturbed."
Leylin's heartbeat slowed, but his thoughts accelerated.
A tomb… steeped in fel…
There was only one answer that fit. "The Tomb of Sargeras," Leylin said quietly.
Eliones' eyes widened a fraction. "You sound certain."
"I am," Leylin replied. "I've been there before."
Her gaze sharpened. "And you lived?"
"Barely," Leylin said honestly. "I retreated the first time. Circumstances weren't right."
He closed his eyes briefly. But now Gul'dan is there. And he won't retreat.
Leylin already knew what this meant.
Gul'dan had grown impatient. The Legion's leash was tightening, and every delay gnawed at him. Whatever careful probing he had planned was over, this would be a forced awakening.
"Eliones," Leylin said, opening his eyes, "I have to leave. Immediately."
She didn't argue. Instead, a flicker of unease crossed her face. "I had a feeling this would happen. Ever since you mentioned his name."
Leylin turned toward the window, already mentally preparing spell arrays, contingency routes, escape vectors.
"Before I go," he continued, "there's something you need to prepare for."
Eliones folded her arms. "Speak."
"A coup," Leylin said plainly. "Within Suramar. Led by Thalyssra."
The words struck like a blade.
Eliones stared at him. "The First Arcanist?"
"Yes."
"When?" she demanded.
"Soon," Leylin replied. "Days, weeks or a few months at most."
Eliones' expression darkened, anger and disbelief warring across her face.
"She would dare…" she muttered. "Against Elisande? Against the city?"
"She believes she's saving it," Leylin said calmly. "Whether she succeeds or not is irrelevant to what matters most."
Eliones looked sharply at him. "You're withholding something."
Leylin met her gaze evenly. "I'm telling you what you need to know, not everything I know."
A tense silence followed.
Then Eliones exhaled slowly. "Very well. What are your arrangements?"
Leylin spoke without hesitation.
"Secure your manor. Withdraw your personal forces from overt positions. Do not openly oppose Thalyssra at the start, observe. If chaos erupts, protect your resources and wait."
"And you?" Eliones asked.
"I'll be dealing with something far worse," Leylin said.
For the first time, Eliones felt something cold coil in her chest.
"You're walking straight into Gul'dan's path," she said quietly.
"Yes."
"And you still plan to come back?"
Leylin allowed himself a faint smile. "I didn't survive this long by making final journeys."
She studied him for a long moment, then nodded.
"Go," Eliones said. "But know this, if Suramar burns while you're gone, I won't forgive you."
Leylin turned, already moving. "Then make sure it doesn't."
—
The Broken Isles stretched endlessly beneath him as Leylin followed the trail left by the scouts, fel corruption growing denser with every league.
The air itself grew heavier, charged with malignant intent. So this is it, Leylin thought. The point of no return.
His mind replayed his first encounter with this place, the oppressive pressure, the ancient wards reacting violently to his presence, the instinctual certainty that if he stayed longer, he would die.
But now, everything has changed. He could feel it.
Ahead, deep within the land, a convergence was forming. Gul'dan was no longer alone.
Leylin sensed the gathering of the Stormreaver warlocks, their fel signatures coiling together like serpents around a single core. Orcish warriors—those scattered remnants of the Horde who had followed Gul'dan into the Broken Isles—were being drawn back to him.
He could almost picture it:
Gul'dan standing before the sealed depths of the Tomb, his patience exhausted, his ambition burning hotter than ever. The Legion's whispers urging him forward. The promise of power is too great to ignore.
"He's rushing it," Leylin muttered. "Which means mistakes."
Leylin descended toward the shadowed region where the tomb lay buried, his mana flowing quietly, efficiently.
This time, he wasn't here to flee.
This time—
He had come prepared.
And somewhere beneath layers of stone, seal, and ancient sin, the Tomb of Sargeras waited, silent no longer.
—
The seal was broken not with reverence but with greed.
Fel fire crawled across the ancient stone gates as Gul'dan stood at the forefront of the remnants of the Horde, his staff driven into the ground like a stake claiming ownership. The Tomb of Sargeras answered not with silence, but with a deep, resonant groan that echoed through the bedrock, as if something vast and ancient had stirred from an unwilling slumber.
"Move," Gul'dan snarled. "Every moment wasted is power slipping from my grasp."
Behind him, Stormreaver warlocks hesitated only briefly before obeying. Orcish warriors followed, weapons raised, eyes burning with anticipation or fear. The air inside the tomb was thick, suffocating with ancient fel residue layered atop primordial arcane wards older than the Horde itself.
Leylin watched from the shadows. He remained far back, his presence folded tightly within illusion and spatial concealment.
Even here, the pressure gnawed at his senses, an omnipresent will pressing against his consciousness, as if the tomb itself rejected all intruders.
So this is how it begins, Leylin thought. Not with conquest… but sacrifice.
The deeper the Horde marched, the more the tomb responded.
The first guardians awakened without warning. Massive stone sentinels tore themselves free from alcoves lining the corridors, their bodies forged from obsidian, rune-etched basalt, and veins of molten fel. Their eyes flared crimson as ancient protocols ignited.
The moment an orc crossed an invisible threshold—
The guardian struck. A colossal stone fist slammed down, crushing three warriors into paste before they could even scream. Another guardian exhaled a torrent of fel-laced flame, incinerating a squad of foot soldiers and warping their armor into molten slag.
"Hold the line!" one warlord roared.
The Stormreaver warlocks answered with hellfire.
Fel bolts, shadow lances, and twisted curses tore into the guardians, shattering chunks of stone and disrupting their runic cores. One guardian collapsed under sustained fire, its body cracking apart as unstable energy detonated from within.
But for every guardian felled—
Another rose. The tomb had not been built to repel armies. It had been built to erase them.
As the Horde pushed forward, Leylin noted the subtle shift in Gul'dan's behavior. The warlock did not slow. Did not adapt. Did not mourn losses.
He urged them onward.
"Faster!" Gul'dan barked. "You feel it, don't you? The power is waiting below!"
The corridors grew narrower, the ceiling pressing lower. Whispers crept into the minds of those who marched, promises, threats, half-remembered nightmares. Some orcs faltered.
Others screamed and turned their blades on allies, driven mad by the tomb's influence.
Leylin watched as a Stormreaver warlock was impaled by a spectral blade erupting from the wall, his soul ripped free before his body even fell.
Another attempted to drain a guardian's energy directly and was annihilated as the guardian's core overloaded, releasing a shockwave that liquefied everything within ten paces. The Horde's numbers dwindled rapidly. Gul'dan did not look back.
He could feel it now, the heart of the tomb. A presence vast beyond comprehension, coiled and bound, radiating power that made his very blood sing.
His breathing quickened.
"Almost…" he muttered.
The deepest chamber awaited them. Here, the guardians were much larger than what they encountered on the upper floors.
Towering beings of fused demon bone, stone, and pure fel energy stood watch, each one a relic of the Legion's earliest conquests. Their forms defied symmetry, limbs splitting and reforming as living runes crawled across their hides.
The remaining Horde forces hesitated. Even the Stormreavers felt fear.
"Forward!" Gul'dan screamed. "Do not falter now!"
The final battle erupted in hellish fury. Felguards clashed with tomb sentinels in brutal melee, axes shattering against rune-forged armor.
Warlocks unleashed everything they had, summoning infernals that slammed into guardians from above, shadow storms that tore at spectral defenses, soul siphons that screamed as they failed to gain purchase.
Leylin narrowed his eyes, memorizing everything.These guardians aren't meant to be destroyed, he realized. They're meant to delay.
One by one, Gul'dan's forces fell.
A warlock was crushed beneath a sentinel's heel. Another was ripped apart by fel tendrils erupting from the ground. Even the infernals were torn down, their cores shattered and absorbed by the tomb.
Finally—
Only Gul'dan remained. The guardians closed in. For the first time, hesitation flickered across the warlock's face.
Then—
He laughed. A mad, triumphant laugh.
"You think this will stop me?" Gul'dan roared. "I have given everything for this moment!"
He drove his staff into the ground and unleashed the full extent of his power. The chamber detonated with fel light.
A wave of raw, uncontrolled magic tore outward, obliterating the nearest guardians, ripping chunks of the tomb's structure apart, warping space itself. Ancient wards shattered like glass.
Leylin's eyes widened.
That surge—!
He reacted instantly. Spatial anchors activated. Escape vectors formed. But it was too late. The wave struck him like the wrath of a god.
Leylin felt himself torn from reality as the space around him fractured, folding, collapsing, breaking into impossible angles. His vision dissolved into blinding light and screaming mana.
As the tomb's chamber collapsed inward, Gul'dan vanished beneath the ruin, his fate sealed by the very power he had sought to claim.
And Leylin—
Was swallowed by the broken space left behind.
Darkness claimed him. Not silence. Not death. But the cold, endless pull of somewhere else entirely.