Stormwind Wizard God
Chapter 671: Fear

Chapter 671 - Fear

Fear.

Consuming everything.

The Eastern Kingdoms had wallowed in blessed peace for over two millennia, but even after another decade of supposed tranquility, that peace now lay shattered beyond recognition.

For the grizzled veterans and weathered elders, the carnage at the Dark Portal felt fresh as an open wound. The screams still echoed in their nightmares, the stench of orc blood still clung to their memories.

The terror of yesterday had barely begun to fade when death's shadow descended once more, darker and more absolute than before.

The Scourge.

Deathless. Relentless. Unstoppable.

An eternity of bondage that claimed you even beyond the grave!

When the bogeymen from children's tales crawled out of legend and into reality, fear became a living thing that gnawed at every soul. It festered in their hearts, spread through their veins, and poisoned their very thoughts.

The fall of Lordaeron City and Dalaran—bastions that had stood unconquered for millennia—sent that terror exploding through the continent with the force of a thousand thunderclaps.

They had believed the coastline would be their salvation.

When the refugees stumbled from the undead-poisoned lands toward the glittering promise of the sea, they discovered that safety was nothing more than a cruel illusion.

During the first Dark Portal crisis, the evacuees at Stormwind Harbor had possessed something invaluable: those towering stone ramparts rising behind them, ancient walls that whispered of strength and defiance. Even with orc war-cries echoing in the distance, those walls had offered comfort to trembling hearts.

Southshore was a different beast entirely.

Despite a decade of frantic development that had elevated it to prominence among the four great northern ports—alongside Stratholme, Quel'Thalas, and the capital harbors—Southshore remained fundamentally defenseless. A pathetic five-meter wall stood guard over the docks, barely tall enough to stop a determined horse, let alone the ravenous undead hordes.

By the Light, if Lordaeron City with its magnificent thirty-meter battlements had crumbled, if Dalaran with its forest of mage towers had been reduced to rubble, what earthly good would this laughable harbor wall accomplish?

Panic spread through the refugee camps with the virulence of plague. Riots erupted hourly. Fights broke out over scraps of bread, over places in line, over rumors and whispers. The evacuation, already crawling at a snail's pace, ground to a near-complete halt.

Southshore's limitations were brutally apparent—only five of the mightiest battleships could anchor here, with space for perhaps thirty smaller vessels. Princess Ilucia had spent years pleading for expansion, only to be met with the venomous suspicion of Lordaeron's nobility.

"A handful of merchant vessels each year, and you want a grand harbor? Planning to invite Stormwind and Kul Tiras to sail right up to our doorstep, are you?" The lords had spat their accusations with such venom that Ilucia had nearly choked on her rage.

Meanwhile, Gilneas maintained its stranglehold on the southern reaches of Silverpine Forest, ensuring that the rival coastal ports remained stunted and inadequate.

The consequences of that shortsightedness now stared them in the face with pitiless clarity.

Hundreds of thousands of Alliance soldiers were converging on this position, while over three hundred thousand Lordaeron refugees already choked the available space. More desperate souls poured in with each passing hour, their numbers swelling the crowds to nightmarish proportions.

Ships were plentiful—space was not. The harbor's throat was too narrow, creating a bottleneck that would have been comical if it weren't so catastrophic. Beyond the docks, the gently sloping beaches couldn't accommodate the great vessels; their deep drafts would run aground on the sandy bottom before they could properly anchor.

The Kul Tirans had thrown themselves into the task with desperate efficiency, ferrying refugees from shore to ship in an endless parade of smaller boats. But shuttling people in rowboats proved maddeningly slow compared to direct boarding at proper moorings.

The lords of Lordaeron had sealed their own people's doom through petty politics and narrow thinking.

Count Trosma, the port's beleaguered commander, had endured such a torrent of abuse and blame that he'd seriously considered hurling himself into the churning waves. Nothing he attempted seemed to ease the crisis.

Then Duke arrived.

Confronted with this scene of barely controlled chaos, Duke pressed his palm against his forehead while Mograine and the other commanders wore expressions of thunderous dismay.

Before Duke—who carried the Queen's own scepter—and the formidable Grand Duke Mograine, Count Trosma nearly soiled himself with terror. These men could order his execution with a casual word and have his corpse fed to the fishes before sunset.

Duke could only manage a bitter laugh. After all his travels, after deliberately avoiding the hellish evacuation at Storm Harbor, he'd returned to find that his decade-long absence had crippled Ilucia's ability to handle Lordaeron's stubborn nobility.

World travelers, it seemed, couldn't reshape the entire world in a single stroke.

"At this pace, we're looking at three months minimum," Mograine announced, his estimate deliberately optimistic.

Three months?

The undead weren't blind fools!

Three months would give Arthas's Scourge ample time to reduce this place to ash and bone several times over.

Duke had just received word that Uther's corpse had been discovered, discarded on the roadside near Caer Darrow as if the great paladin were nothing more than refuse. This meant Arthas had grown stronger, more corrupt, more powerful than ever before.

For reasons unknown, Arthas had deviated from expected patterns to assault Stromgarde—but Duke harbored no illusions that the Death Knight would ignore hundreds of thousands of trapped souls for long. Such a feast of potential undead servants wouldn't be overlooked.

"We need a miracle," Abendis muttered, despair thick in his voice.

"If miracles happened on command, they wouldn't be miracles," Mograine replied, clapping his old comrade on the shoulder. Their exchanged glance carried volumes—they both understood this would likely end in glorious death.

At that moment, Duke spoke, gesturing toward his youthful features: "What if I told you that what you see before you might be a fraud of a wizard?"

"What in the blazes—?"

Duke claiming to be a fake wizard?

What manner of madness was this?

Nobody comprehended his meaning, but that didn't prevent them from obeying his commands to clear the coastline south of Southshore Harbor.

No civilians, no vessels—only hundreds of Scarlet Crusade soldiers and over a hundred officials and nobles who had sworn fealty to Duke.

Duke positioned himself on the beach, seawater lapping at the sand barely two meters from his boots.

He appeared unchanged from a decade past—the same cropped hair, the same blue and white robes that danced in the salt-tinged breeze.

With a quiet exhalation, Duke manifested a sphere of brilliant white light in his palm. Standing at the boundary between land and sea, he raised his hand, and the orb began expanding beyond the size of a carriage, hovering in the air above. Its cold radiance illuminated the composed expression of the Alliance commander.

The sphere emanated a chill that cut through the summer heat—but unlike Arthas's deathly cold that froze the soul, Duke's frigid aura felt refreshing, invigorating, as if one were sipping an iced drink while basking in warm sunlight.

Due to the angle, none of the observers noticed that Duke's pupils had transformed completely—from the deep black of infinite space to ethereal orbs that seemed to flow with liquid silver.

The blazing sphere of light climbed higher and higher before beginning to dissolve into the atmosphere.

The temperature plummeted.

The entire beach, the entire ocean, suddenly convulsed as if struck by some tremendous arctic blast from the depths of the world.

In the next heartbeat, every soul present stood transfixed with awe and terror.

The sea—had frozen solid.