Throughout history, the "Old God" N'Zoth has almost always been the ultimate victor in any conflict.
It excels at controlling hearts, tempting people to fall into depravity, and possesses exceptional intelligence and cunning. Anyone with such traits would achieve extraordinary things, but N'Zoth is the best among them.
Before the Titans returned to Azeroth, N'Zoth was the most powerful of the Old Gods. For self-preservation, Yogg-Saron had to unite with C'Thun to contend with it.
It was precisely because it was too powerful that the Titans sealed it at the bottom of the deep sea, a place no one could reach, to prevent N'Zoth from being freed.
However, during the War of the Ancients, Neltharion fell into corruption, Queen Azshara and her followers all transformed into Naga, and "Satyr Lord" Xavius, who had originally sided with the Burning Legion, also became the "Lord of Nightmares."
These important villains ultimately became its pawns under N'Zoth's meticulous calculations.
The invading Burning Legion was banished back to the Twisting Nether, the exploding Well of Eternity tore the earth apart, and the races that resisted the invasion suffered heavy losses.
In the end, N'Zoth became the biggest beneficiary behind the scenes. Yet, almost no one noticed its small actions.
N'Zoth carefully laid out its plans, spending tens of thousands of years weaving a perfect scheme.
As long as everything goes according to plan, one day it will break free from its confinement, re-rule the entire land, and ultimately counterattack the Pantheon, destroy all the Titans, and let the power of the Old Gods permeate the entire universe!
This grand plan has been developing in the direction N'Zoth envisioned. Even if there were occasional small setbacks, N'Zoth at least achieved its minimum goals each time.
Like the Nexus War, although C'Thun died, at least N'Zoth obtained the empowered Focusing Iris, and the plan to create chromatic dragons was still underway.
Except for the Ulduar crisis, N'Zoth did not expect Yogg-Saron to truly die—although it saw Aiden's true colors because of this, it didn't gain anything, because the "loss" was too great.
Yogg-Saron was, after all, an Old God. With the deaths of two Old Gods, including C'Thun, it was left as the only remaining evil god struggling forward.
But from another perspective, at least Aiden used this "dirty trick" on Yogg-Saron. N'Zoth would naturally be prepared in the future and would never follow in Yogg-Saron's footsteps.
Thinking this way, it wasn't really at a loss.
Only this time, the scheme to force Aiden to travel back to the War of the Ancients completely failed. The result was completely out of its control.
Before Aiden revealed all the facts, even N'Zoth itself believed that if Aiden did not travel back to the War of the Ancients to complete that part of history, Azeroth would truly be destroyed.
This was not a conspiracy, but a legitimate, aboveboard scheme.
It laid its cards on the table, giving Aiden this choice: either obediently travel back and give it time to let Deathwing prepare, or watch the world be completely destroyed in a few minutes!
N'Zoth didn't think it would fail, because even a slightly sane person would know what to choose.
This wasn't even its plan; it just happened to know that Aiden had traveled through time before. So when Aiden proposed to actively lift the seal on the elemental planes, N'Zoth didn't panic at all.
As long as Aiden went back for a few months, Deathwing would have been ready long ago.
But the choice Aiden made was completely different from what it and Nozdormu had expected, and the result was also completely different—even if Aiden didn't travel, the world wouldn't be destroyed! Whether he completed history or not, Azeroth would not suddenly disappear when it exceeded that point in time!
"No, no! This is impossible!"
N'Zoth couldn't accept that its perfect plan would fail in this way.
Every "it" on the infinite timelines saw such a scene: if no one completed this "time travel mission," then the world would really be destroyed!
N'Zoth couldn't figure out why it had become like this now. Its frantic mental power traversed the web-like timeline, trying to explore the reason.
After an unknown amount of time, it saw the following scene:
On this timeline, there were several branches with drastically different outcomes at the "time travel plot" time point.
On one timeline, Aiden listened to Nozdormu and Ysera's advice, entered the Gate of Time, and returned to the ancient era to save the world.
After he came back, the memories of those who had interacted with him ten thousand years ago were finally unsealed.
And N'Zoth had already prepared everything during these few months. Deathwing shattered the World Pillar of Deepholm, and Chromatus, the chromatic dragon, flew out from underground.
Chromatus held back several Dragon Aspects, while Deathwing took the opportunity to launch the Cataclysm.
Because the Thrall of this world was not strong enough, no one could replace the "Earth Warden" to combine the five dragons, and they were eventually killed by Chromatus in Dragonblight.
And Deathwing successfully launched the Cataclysm, and the "End Time" arrived. N'Zoth became the master of Azeroth…
This was N'Zoth's plan. Everything was completely in line with its expectations!
But that was just a parallel space, just a possibility of the history of this timeline, and it was meaningless to the N'Zoth of this world.
N'Zoth also saw on another fork at that time point that Aiden did not travel through the timeline.
And when that must-travel time point passed, the entire Azeroth instantly turned into another appearance—this became the Burning Legion's base camp. The earth was crimson, lifeless. Demons gathered around the Well of Eternity, drawing its energy to strengthen themselves, and then continuously joining the battlefield of the great universe, destroying one world after another under the leadership of the powerful legion commander Sargeras.
—This should have been the ending if Aiden didn't travel, but why didn't it come, but became a possibility in a parallel world?
The result in the real world was that Aiden didn't travel, but the world didn't instantly become occupied by the Burning Legion because of it. Everything was the same as before, just like it was before.
N'Zoth's question was destined to be unanswerable.
It was so confused by the completely different results it saw that its head felt like it was about to explode, and it could do nothing but roar madly.
—
After resolving this matter, Aiden continued to Storm Peaks, preparing to open the seal of the elemental planes.
In fact, he could answer all the questions of N'Zoth and Nozdormu.
Just now, he used a set of half-truths to fool Nozdormu and Ysera. In fact, the fundamental reason for this phenomenon was because he understood the underlying settings of "World of Warcraft" and knew part of its operating principles.
A year ago, during the Nightmare Invasion, when Aiden and Chromie went to the Caverns of Time to find the missing Nozdormu, he first learned from Aman'Thul the reason for the existence of "World of Warcraft."
Although this world is real, its operating rules are based on the settings of the programmers at the beginning.
For example, during the Battle of Icecrown Citadel, Nozdormu summoned so many "mercenaries" from other worlds. Aiden later had to travel to those worlds to give those mercenaries a reason to appear.
Also, for example, Nozdormu saw in the future the things Aiden would do—felling the World Tree, taking Malygos into the Emerald Dream, and destroying the Caverns of Time to absorb the Sands of Time—all of which were later confirmed in the plot.
However, this was not a predetermined fate, but a "supplement" calculated in real-time by the World of Warcraft system based on current data.
Switching to this time-travel mission, if Aiden had no knowledge of the system's settings and completely agreed with and followed its operating rules, then whether he time-traveled or not, the result would be as Nozdormu and the others predicted:
If he time-traveled, then N'Zoth's next plan could unfold; if he didn't, after a certain point in time, the world would become like it was after being occupied by the Burning Legion for ten thousand years.
But because he knew the nature of the world, things were different.
In fact, there was no such thing as "time-shielded memories"; it was just that the current "free script" had set up the plot for him to travel to the War of the Ancients to save the world.
If he time-traveled and interacted with those people in ancient times—Cenarius, Malorne, the Malfurion brothers, Tyrande, those heroes—then after he returned, those people would have memories of him added under the influence of the "system" to make everything seem natural.
If he didn't time-travel, it would be equivalent to not entering this plot, not accepting this mission. The system would have two judgments: the first is that the mission failed, and as punishment, the world would instantly become occupied by the Burning Legion, as Nozdormu and N'Zoth saw, and everything would be destroyed.
In reality, this was still the result of real-time data deduction.
The other option, of course, is that nothing happened, following the principles of the real world, where the future is full of changes, the past does not determine the future, and the future cannot change the past.
The War of the Ancients had already happened; Azeroth was not occupied by the Burning Legion ten thousand years ago, so how could it suddenly become occupied just because Aiden didn't time-travel?
This logic doesn't make sense—therefore, there is no such thing as "time-shielded memories."
Because Aiden knew the nature of the world, knew that those real-time calculated data needed corresponding plot support, and that he himself, as the core task of this free script, or rather, the only "player," how could the system possibly erase him? That's why he resolutely refused the time-travel mission.
And in order to make everything explainable, the system changed Nozdormu and Ysera's idea that "the world would be destroyed if Aiden didn't time-travel" into the result of their memories being influenced by N'Zoth.
And this was just another real-time calculation.
After this incident, Aiden realized more deeply that everything in the entire World of Warcraft was a pawn under the control of the "system," modifiable data, and NPCs with flesh and blood.
This time was Aiden's first direct confrontation with the "system settings." Although the previous plots had some differences, large or small, from the classic plots, they were still the result of appearing within the framework limited by the system.
Only this time, he jumped directly outside the system's framework.
And this attempt received the most generous reward.
Round one—Aiden wins completely!
"To fight with Heaven is endless joy."
"To fight with Earth is endless joy."
"To fight with the System is endless joy."
Aiden felt a lot more relaxed all over.
He knew very well that because of this round's victory, the plots arranged by the "system" would undergo increasingly larger changes.
Deathwing didn't have enough preparation time, the Chromatic Dragon was still incomplete, and because he didn't time-travel, the "Cataclysm" that triggered worldwide disasters would probably be completely different.
Under the influence of the butterfly effect, this world would truly move in a completely different direction.
He saw the dawn of victory.
"Then let's start the next round!" Aiden came to the main console of the Stonecore and prepared to use his authority to open the seal of the elemental planes.
"Verifying authority… passed."
"Accepting command: Open the seal of the elemental planes."
"Seal opening…"
Aiden felt relaxed all over as he watched the signal lights and information flow of the Titan system in front of him constantly flashing: "It's truly a day worth commemorating."
"Opening complete. Current status of the elemental planes: Unsealed."
Aiden felt the earth tremble slightly. He seemed to hear a sound like a bottle stopper being pulled out.
In his perception, the distance between the four elemental planes of earth, water, fire, and air, as well as the Emerald Dream, these unique spaces, and the material world of Azeroth, became very close.
He knew that the elemental planes had truly been unsealed.
In fact, these worlds were originally overlapping with the real world, but the fluctuation frequencies were different. Under normal circumstances, people could not sense these planes, so naturally, they could not enter them. But when the seal was lifted, entering and exiting the elemental planes became much easier.
Time was of the essence, so Aiden immediately activated the teleportation, using the teleport beacon to return to Los Angeles.
The heroes were already waiting for him here, and everyone stood up when they saw him return.
Aiden didn't waste any time and went straight to the point: "According to the plan, let's split up!"
"War is coming."
Yes, war was coming.
The Tempest Keep floating in the sky above the Endless Ocean, the Exodar sub-ship above Mount Hyjal, the energy ship above the Eastern Kingdoms, and the airships cruising everywhere all showed a grim atmosphere.
—
With the elemental plane seals broken, the world immediately became different.
Ysera the Dreamer told Malfurion that because the distance between the Emerald Dream and reality had become very close, it would now be much easier to resurrect the immortals. She instructed the night elves to begin resurrecting those immortals who had died in the War of the Ancients according to her instructions.
For example, Goldrinn the Wolf God, Malorne the Keeper of the Grove, Aviana the Raven Goddess, and so on, all died in the War of the Ancients. As immortals, their souls returned to the Emerald Dream. As long as the faithful were willing to pay a price, they could be resurrected.
Also, Remulos the Keeper of the Grove, who died in the War Against the Nightmare, was also on the list of those to be resurrected.
Normally, this price would be extremely high. But now, because the distance between the Emerald Dream and reality had been reduced, resurrecting the immortals was much easier.
The other countries of the Alliance were also taking action.
Tempest Keep had arrived above the Maelstrom and was waiting for orders before Aiden opened the seal of the elemental planes.