The Thousand-Handed Death God?!
Zjara's serpentine mind, usually as sharp as a freshly honed trident, whirred and sputtered. This was a title utterly, spectacularly, aggressively unfamiliar. She racked her ancient, scaled brain, trying to cross-reference it with every whispered legend, every hushed tale of human power she'd ever heard. Which grand potentate, which titan of the human kingdoms, had earned such an outrageously bombastic moniker? None came to mind. Yet, as her gaze drifted to the more than one hundred ethereal, glowing, and thankfully now palm-shaped magician's hands still lazily orbiting Duke like arcane satellites, Vala had to admit: the title was not just appropriate, it was frighteningly apt.
Now that Duke, in his infinite wisdom, had deigned to reveal his true, terrifying identity, Zjara felt an inexplicable, almost dizzying wave of relief wash over her. It was as if this colossal, god-like being had no immediate intention of flaying them all alive and serving them as sashimi to his fishy minions. A small victory, perhaps, but a victory nonetheless!
Zjara, ever the diplomat even when facing a potential deity of dismemberment, bowed so deeply her head almost scraped the sand, a gesture of profound respect that would have made a human courtier weep with envy.
"Be profoundly, eternally thankful, Zjara," Duke intoned, his voice resonating with a casual omnipotence that sent shivers down her spine. "You, and your rather bedraggled subordinates, are deemed useful in my grand, utterly magnificent plan. Demonstrate your absolute, unwavering, fanatical loyalty to me, and as a reward for your unwavering devotion, you shall be granted a vast, sprawling dominion to settle. The entire sun-kissed, fish-filled coastal area of the West shall become the undisputed territory of your noble clan, and every single, slimy, gurgling murloc within these waters shall bow to your command. And as for humans... well, with me here, darling, humans are less than a problem. They're a minor inconvenience, at best."
Duke's words were not merely arrogant; they were supremely arrogant, dripping with a self-assured grandeur that bordered on the comically divine. Yet, Zjara, surprisingly, found not a single syllable of exaggeration in his pronouncements. The fishmen, those simple-minded, fin-flapping creatures, had for ten thousand years been utterly terrified of the Naga, willing to be driven like cattle by their serpentine masters. They only recognized one universal truth: whoever had more arms was the undisputed boss. And they had a deeply ingrained, utterly unshakeable preconceived notion of power.
Zjara, with her keen Naga intellect, knew full well that Duke's hands were mere magical constructs. But such lifelike, impossibly flexible, and terrifyingly potent palms were absolutely, unequivocally beyond the capabilities of any ordinary magician she had ever encountered. Feeling the astonishing, lingering magical aftermath of Duke's recent, rather enthusiastic dismemberment of the male Naga leader Nuruk, Zjara was secretly, profoundly shocked.
She knew, with a certainty that chilled her to the bone, that Duke was not merely her match; he was a force of nature, a walking, multi-handed apocalypse.
And so, with a pragmatic sigh that only a Naga facing certain doom could truly appreciate, she decided. She would offer her loyalty. Even if, for now, it was merely a temporary, strategic surrender.
"I, Zjara Avis," she declared, her voice resonating with a newfound, if slightly forced, conviction, "representing the illustrious Angry Scale branch, am overjoyed to serve you, my most esteemed master." With a graceful flick of her hand, she uttered a few sharp, guttural words in the ancient Naga tongue to her thirty or so remaining tribesmen. Immediately, as if struck by an invisible, divine hammer, every single Naga present dropped to their knees, or rather what counted as knees for them, their scaled bodies prostrate before Duke.
"Rise," Duke commanded, his voice laced with an almost casual pride. As he spoke, one of his wizard's hands, now magnified to twice the size of a Naga's own limb, gently but firmly grasped their elbows, helping them to their feet with an almost paternalistic air.
At that precise moment, every single Naga's face underwent a dramatic, simultaneous transformation.
After all, they hadn't directly witnessed Duke's earlier, rather messy display of power. Their only evidence had been the hundreds of terrified, willing fishmen and the utterly obliterated corpse of Nuruk, who had been chasing them.
But now, feeling the overwhelming, almost suffocating power emanating from that single wizard's hand, they shuddered. A pair of hands, crafted from pure magical energy, possessed such astonishing, raw strength. This power could, with effortless grace, lift them up, or just as easily, strangle them to death with a casual flick of a finger.
The Nagas' awe of Duke, already considerable, deepened into a profound, almost religious terror.
With the delicate matter of king and subject status now firmly established, Duke felt a nagging sense that something was still missing. Then, like a bolt of arcane lightning, he suddenly remembered the soul mark that the enigmatic Medivh had so casually imprinted upon his own chest.
"System AI," Duke mused internally, "can I create a soul mark similar to Medivh's?"
"After rigorous calculation, Host," the system AI replied, its voice as dry as a desert bone, "your current mana reserves are insufficient to forcibly imprint such a mark upon an opponent's soul if they were to resist. However, if the opponent does not resist, a wizard's mark of that nature is, for you, merely a trivial trick, equivalent to a Level 0 spell."
"Can we... add some ingredients?" Duke asked, a mischievous glint in his eyes. He wasn't just looking for a mark; he was looking for a statement.
The system AI, bless its soulless, calculating heart, instantly grasped Duke's deliciously devious idea. "Affirmative," it chirped.
At that very instant, a cold, brilliant white light erupted from Duke's right index finger, the unmistakable, shimmering spell-light of concentrated ice energy.
"Zjara," Duke announced, his voice imbued with an almost hypnotic authority, "open your heart. I have a... gift to bestow upon you."
Now, Duke was undeniably the one calling the shots. Zjara, with a resigned sigh, certainly dared not resist. She swayed her long, elegant snake tail, gliding forward until she stood directly before Duke.
Though Duke's movements seemed, to Zjara's trained eye, utterly riddled with flaws – no basic wizard shield, no defensive posture, and a clear, tempting vulnerability that screamed "kill me now!" , Zjara didn't dare. She could have, with a single, swift strike, ended the human who was about to enslave her. But those wizard's hands, floating around Duke like predatory, ethereal jellyfish, were so elusive, so unpredictable. She truly had no idea the full extent of their terrifying power.
She stepped forward respectfully, closed her eyes, and allowed Duke's finger to gently, almost tenderly, touch her forehead.
As the white light pierced through her eyelids, it intensified, growing brighter and brighter, almost to the point where Zjara could no longer bear it. Then, a profound, soul-chilling coolness penetrated Zjara's very essence, seeping in from between her eyebrows, directly into her mind.
"Mmmph..." A low moan escaped Zjara's lips. The sensation of cool, blissful comfort was so overwhelmingly potent, so utterly divine, that it threatened to melt Zjara's brain into a puddle of contented goo.
Then, with a jolt of dawning horror, Zjara immediately realized: this was no ordinary wizard's mark.
It had not only invaded her soul, but it had also, with an almost surgical precision, latched onto every single one of her intricate magical circuits. It was over! This time, she was truly, irrevocably bound. She would have to serve this infuriatingly powerful, little human until the very last drop of her serpentine blood ran cold.
At that precise, soul-crushing moment, Zjara finally, utterly extinguished the last flickering ember of rebelliousness in her heart.
As if in direct response to Zjara's newfound, absolute loyalty, a sudden, profound enlightenment washed over her. She could distinctly, vividly feel that her ice spells had been significantly, dramatically improved. This wasn't some crude, forced enhancement that would inevitably lead to painful side effects. No, this was a perfectly streamlined, elegantly simplified model for wielding ice spells with unparalleled perfection, now permanently imprinted into the very fabric of her soul.
In the years to come, as time flowed and her own strength inevitably grew, the power of her ice spells would increase proportionally, a constant, escalating wellspring of frigid devastation.
This immense, terrifying power...
Zjara stared at Duke's infuriatingly young, almost boyish face. She simply couldn't believe it. This was Duke's doing? He had actually gifted her with a super-magic expertise, a secret said to be understandable only by the most ancient and powerful of mages!
Turning her head, she gazed at her reflection in the shimmering water, and there, emblazoned brightly on her forehead, was the emblem. It was a stark, obsidian-black symbol, with the hooded skull of the god of death at its chilling center, and next to the skull, countless faintly emerging, ghostly hands of mages.
It was, indeed, the undeniable, terrifying emblem of the Hundred-Handed Grim Reaper!
Zjara no longer harbored any lingering doubts, any rebellious thoughts. She bowed deeply once more, her surrender complete. "Master," she whispered, her voice laced with a newfound, genuine reverence, "what are your next divine instructions?"
"Which clan of Nagas was that rather rude group chasing you just now?" Duke inquired, his tone casual, as if discussing the weather.
"That," Vala replied, a hint of disdain in her voice, "was the Grayscale Clan from Stranglethorn Vale, located in the southern part of the Westfall. However, my master, you have... dispatched their chief warrior. I fear they won't dare to approach this area again until they manage to find significantly stronger reinforcements. And given the sheer, mind-numbing distance, it takes at least two months to travel from Stranglethorn Vale to here. So, we shouldn't have to worry about the Grayscale Clan in the short term."
"Excellent, excellent." Duke nodded sagely, then pointed a finger at the hulking, one-eyed murloc who had been so eager to offer him salmon. "In the coming month, in addition to settling your tribe and getting them accustomed to their new, glorious overlord, you are to bring every single murloc tribe along the entire coast of the Westfall under your command, starting with that old blind brute over there. When the time is right, I shall personally descend and demonstrate my awe-inspiring power to the leaders of all the murloc tribes, just to make sure they understand who's boss."
"And... anything else, Master?" Zjara asked, bracing herself for another impossible, potentially terrifying command.
"I want pearls!" Duke declared, his eyes gleaming with a sudden, almost childish avarice. "Big pearls, small pearls, perfectly round pearls, oddly shaped pearls – the more beautiful, the better! You shall task the tribe of Fishspear with this glorious endeavor. I shall return here in precisely one week to collect my... goods." It was only at this precise moment that Duke finally, gloriously, revealed the true, utterly mundane motivation behind his recent, multi-handed rampage.
Yes! It was pearls!
The world of Azeroth, unlike the pre-transmigration world Duke remembered, was not a place of mundane pearl cultivation. Pearls were an incredibly rare, impossibly luxurious commodity in all seven human kingdoms, and even among the haughty elves of Quel'Thalas.
The reason was simple, yet infuriatingly inconvenient: all the pearls were in the sea. And the ocean, that vast, untamed expanse, was the undisputed, fiercely guarded territory of the murlocs and the Nagas.
Humans, for all their mighty warships and impressive naval might, could conquer anything on the surface. But on the seabed, they were utterly powerless. It wasn't that no human had ever cast a covetous eye upon the Naga's underwater treasures, but the Naga's lairs were almost always deep on the ocean floor. Who, in their right mind, would bother to wipe out an entire small tribe just for some shiny baubles, as Duke had so casually done?
By the way, Duke had only originally planned to deal with the murloc tribe. This Naga subjugation was merely a delightful, unexpected bonus.
Hearing Duke's surprisingly mundane request, Zjara secretly breathed a sigh of immense relief. Different races, indeed, had vastly different values. Pearls and such trivial trinkets were, for the Naga, truly no problem at all. A small price to pay for survival, and perhaps, a path to reclaiming their lost glory under the command of the utterly insane, multi-handed human.