When Gul'dan turned around, it suddenly occurred to him, Drek'Thar and the others had been right behind him, but now they were gone. They must have fled.
Screams echoed endlessly through the tomb around him.
Where the claws had touched him, it felt like fire scorching his flesh. He raised a hand to his face and found a deep gash had opened across it.
"You damned thing, Sargeras!" he cursed, stumbling through columns, dashing between rooms and alcoves.
"I will not be defeated like this! I am Gul'dan! I am the embodiment of darkness! This… this will not be how it ends."
He held his breath and listened closely to the sounds behind him.
But there was nothing. Even the screaming had ceased.
"Fools, cowards!"
He cursed them in his mind, picturing the Bleeding Hollow clan members who had followed him here.
"They're probably already dead." His face twitched with pain as he pressed his hand to the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. It was a futile effort.
The continuous blood loss was beginning to make him dizzy. His limbs felt heavy and unresponsive.
"Even so, I must press on," he told himself firmly. "My own power should be enough, "
Gul'dan stopped speaking and listened intently.
What was that sound?
It was faint and incessant, whispering and maddening, crawling beneath his skin. Yet it also carried a note of cruelty, and mockery.
"That laugh… is that you, Sargeras?" he growled. "You dare laugh at me? Once I seize your Burning Eye, we'll see who laughs last, demon!"
He turned a corner and entered a new hall. To his surprise, the walls here were completely bare, not a single carving or mural in sight.
As if infected by some unspeakable force within, Gul'dan approached the nearest wall and began to write on it, scrawling his experiences and warnings about the guardians inside, all written in his own blood.
Several times he hesitated, uncertain whether he could continue. His hand was growing too weak to lift.
"I was ambushed… by the guardians," he wrote with heavy strokes. "I… am dying."
He knew it was the truth. With all his strength, he struggled to record his final moments before death took him.
But behind him, he could already hear the ravenous voices approaching.
They had come for him.
"If only my servants hadn't abandoned me…" he wrote, vision blurring, his throat tightening until no sound could escape.
But deep down, he knew it wasn't their fault. It was all his.
He had believed he controlled everything. But in truth, he had been a fool, a pawn of the Burning Legion, a slave to the demons.
His existence was nothing but a joke. A cruel, hollow joke, and it was about to end.
"I was a fool," he thought.
He stopped writing, turned, and tried to run, only to find it was already too late.
Claws tore deep into his body, and Gul'dan's final sound was a scream of utter despair.
…
At that same moment, on the beach outside the temple.
Red reached out an arm to stop Maim from moving forward.
"No. We don't need to go any further," he said softly. He had tied a belt taken from a fallen soldier around his wound, but the blood still seeped through.
"We have to catch up to Gul'dan," Maim insisted.
Though his injuries made his steps unsteady, a thick bandage wrapped around one leg and his shoulder soaked in blood, he refused to back down.
"There's no need," his brother said, pointing ahead. "Those things have already finished the job for us."
Strange creatures were pouring out of the structure before them.
Some of them looked familiar, the same kind of beasts those damned warlocks would summon to fight for them.
But these ones weren't controlled. They were feral, mindless, with blood still dripping from their fangs and claws, blood from the orcs who had entered the temple.
One after another, the creatures charged down the beach, attacking the orcs with frenzied rage.
They tore into the bodies of their victims like starving animals.
Some orcs froze in terror at the sight of them, but others immediately fought back.
Eventually, they managed to kill the beasts, but it had cost many orc lives.
These monsters had come from within the temple.
Even though he was only a warrior, Red could feel the faint trace of magic radiating from the ruined structure. It was powerful, and unimaginably evil.
It was filled with hatred, hatred aimed at every living being.
Only monsters could survive such a force.
Judging by the howls still echoing from within the temple, more of these things were lurking inside.
Whatever the reason, Red knew, there was no need to go deeper. If they did, their entire force might never return.
Suddenly, the ground beneath their feet began to shake.
A thunderous sound erupted from the temple's entrance, and a deep, echoing voice, tinged with laughter, rumbled out from within.
A foul, rotten stench surged from the building, carrying with it the essence of something… other.
Red and Maim trembled involuntarily.
They couldn't see what was inside the temple, but they knew, something truly evil was pouring out from that unholy place.
Finally, a deafening explosion shook the temple, sending a shockwave that knocked the orcs off their feet and stirred the ocean into waves.
The explosion ended quickly.
But the voice continued. The ground kept trembling. The rock beneath their feet cracked. The entire island seemed to be tearing apart.
"Gul'dan is no longer a threat." The explosion faded, and Red climbed to his feet.
He was sure of it.
Whatever Gul'dan had hoped to find here, all he had found was his death.
"Then what should we do now?" Maim asked suddenly, as they turned their backs on the temple.
"We return to the Hammer of Destruction," Red answered.
"We still have a war to fight. At least now we don't need to worry about traitors undermining us from within. And if anyone dares try again… we'll show them no mercy."
The two brothers walked toward the shore, where their ship waited for them.
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