"Arthas, whether this thing is real or not, I think we both need to be careful. After all, the Archmage who completed it was not a benevolent person," Jaina stood beside Arthas, very wary of the mysterious crystal vial.
"So, should we leave it in this secret chamber, or take it with us?" Brann scratched his chin, a bit undecided.
This thing was very likely a magical treasure left from ten thousand years ago, perhaps even the most precious item hidden within Eldre'Thalas, because it originated from the essence of a young dragon and was the life's work of an ancient Archmage.
The Archmage named Chronos would rather endure torture and face death than reveal the whereabouts of his research, which showed just how precious this item was.
Arthas gazed at the crystal vial, remaining silent for a long time. Just as the others were starting to get nervous from his silence, he suddenly spoke, "We seem to have forgotten one problem…Kael, you said the walls of this laboratory are entirely coated with anti-magic materials?"
"At least from the structure of that door, it seems so. Building such a laboratory would be pointless if only the door used anti-magic materials…" Kael'thas replied truthfully. Halfway through his sentence, he roughly understood Arthas's meaning, "You mean, the reason Chronos didn't take it and escape Eldre'Thalas…"
"Exactly. Perhaps Chronos was forced to leave it here, because once he left this laboratory covered in anti-magic materials, the High Elf mages would find him, or rather…"
Kael'thas's expression suddenly turned grim, "The kin of this young dragon would immediately sense something made from dragon essence?"
His words were like lighting a fuse. Jaina and Brann warily scanned their surroundings, afraid a dragon might suddenly appear from somewhere.
"No matter what, this thing is dangerous," Arthas put down the dragon bone in his hand. He had just discovered that almost all of the dragon essence within this dragon bone had been drained. The drained essence had clearly been used to create the vial on the table.
It seemed Chronos had deeper reasons for not taking it, and whether those reasons aligned with their guesses was unknown.
The group was about to leave the secret chamber, but before they reached the door, the astrolabe in Arthas's consciousness suddenly vibrated violently. The disc representing Arcane was emitting a faint, shimmering light.
Arthas immediately stopped—he had never encountered such a situation before, because he had focused his energy on the discs of Holy Light and Death, while the other four primal forces were only maintained at their lowest operational level. This only gave Arthas a strong affinity for them, but he couldn't use them as freely as Holy Light and Death.
Therefore, the Arcane disc, which shouldn't have reacted much, began to slowly rotate, just like Arthas's reaction when he first touched the power of Holy Light in his youth.
The sudden change made Arthas uncertain. He didn't know what such a reaction meant. He had now mastered higher-level powers of Holy Light and Death, and this made him realize that with a human body, attempting to bear multiple different powers was wishful thinking.
Perhaps when Arthas touched even higher levels of Holy Light and Death, enabling his life essence to leap forward, he might gain the authority over a third, or even a fourth, power. But at least for now, he hadn't reached that threshold.
So, the reaction of the Arcane astrolabe made Arthas hesitate, unsure whether he should touch that vial.
Finally, Arthas made up his mind and said to the other three, "You go out first, I have something to do."
Brann stared at Arthas with a strange look. He wasn't suspecting Arthas of wanting to keep the item for himself; he was just curious why Arthas had suddenly changed his mind.
"Are you sure?" Kael'thas asked, and after receiving Arthas's affirmative answer, he said no more.
A mass of dragon essence, while rare, was more trouble than benefit for him and the High Elves, so aside from curiosity, he had no other thoughts.
As for Jaina, she was very worried about Arthas's unusual behavior, "Arthas, if it's not necessary, then forget it. We can just re-seal this place."
Arthas also didn't want to take the risk, but the astrolabe in his consciousness was spinning faster and faster, clearly attracted by the contents of the crystal vial. A long-lost sensation was stirring his nerves.
"Don't worry, nothing will happen," Arthas's voice remained gentle and calm, completely unlike someone about to undertake a risky endeavor, "I just need to confirm something."
With that, Arthas walked towards the crystal vial. A faint golden light shimmered on his gauntlet; before touching the unidentified dragon essence in the vial, he had already protected himself with Holy Light.
And beneath this Holy Light shield was an anti-magic barrier composed of runes. With multiple layers of protection, even enduring a Archmage's magical bombardment for a short time couldn't truly harm Arthas.
But truthfully, Arthas felt no threat from the vial; instead, there was a feeling of pleasant joy, which left him unsure of the vial's true purpose and why it could make the Arcane astrolabe spin.
Several gazes converged on Arthas, and he extended his hand towards the mysterious crystal vial that seemed to exist outside of time.
There was no obstruction, nor did any traps trigger. Chronos had indeed placed his final work on the laboratory table. Arthas's hand grasped the vial, and nothing happened, just as it had been before he picked it up.
The Arcane astrolabe also stopped spinning at this moment; it seemed to have been satisfied. Arthas was somewhat bewildered by this, but at least nothing bad had happened.
Arthas let out a sigh of relief, "Nothing bad happened… Hmm?"
After speaking this sentence, Arthas suddenly noticed that the secret chamber was strangely silent; there was neither Brann's loud shouting nor Jaina's slightly worried complaints.
Everything had stopped, frozen at the moment before Arthas picked up the vial.
He saw the dust shaken from Brann's beard suspended in mid-air, and the never-ceasing mana orb on Kael'thas's robe had stopped rotating. Even the magic swirling around Jaina's staff had ceased its flow.
Time, at this moment, had stopped.
Arthas immediately wanted to put the vial back, but as he had this thought and made the motion, he heard a burst of laughter, a sound that seemed to be in his ear, yet also seemed to originate from an unfathomable abyss.
Immediately after, Arthas again felt the sensation of weightlessness from being thrown into another dimension by Chromie. That dizzying feeling still lasted only for a very short time. When Arthas regained consciousness, the ground beneath his feet was no longer the hard stone tiles of the laboratory, but soft sand.
Damp, sulfur-scented air filled Arthas's nostrils. He found himself in an unfamiliar land. Behind him were strange reefs and surging waves, while before him were pools and soil polluted by fel.
The scene before Arthas made his heart pound; though he had never been here before, it didn't mean he didn't recognize where this was.
The dark reefs, the towering white waves, the oppressive grey-green clouds in the sky, and the green fel beam piercing the heavens from the center of the island—wasn't this the Broken Shore, invaded by the Burning Legion?
Had the contents of that bottle sent him more than ten years into the future?
Arthas was plagued by a headache; he never expected the Dragon Essence to have such an effect, but how was this connected to the "transcendence" that wretched Chronos had mentioned?
After several deep breaths, Arthas forced himself to calm down and focused his attention on the astrolabe.
At this moment, the Arcane disk had begun to rotate steadily, much like when Arthas first started to learn about the Light, which meant he could now learn Arcane magic; however, Arthas would rather not have this ability than be suddenly sent more than ten years into the future.
Training in the Light and Death had already consumed much of Arthas's time, and he understood the principle of not biting off more than one can chew; moreover, given his current physical condition, using both powers offered the greatest efficiency and amplification.
He wouldn't have the time or energy to study the way of Arcane in the short term, but the activation of the Arcane astrolabe also granted Arthas extremely high Arcane resistance, which not only referred to Arcane magic but also all elemental energies born from the essence of Arcane.
Any magic cast with Arcane as its driving force would pose much less of a threat to Arthas, and combined with the runic barrier derived from Death power and the shield maintained by the Light, his durability was almost significantly increased.
There were other benefits Arthas didn't have time to figure out now; the most important thing was to determine whether he had truly traveled through time or merely entered a temporal illusion.
Thinking of this, Arthas tried to summon Frostmourne, which existed in the rift between the real and Shadowlands planes; unexpectedly, the demonic sword was indeed summoned.
"Am I just caught in a temporal illusion?" Arthas gripped the heavy demonic sword and began to ponder.
Until a familiar voice interrupted Arthas's thoughts, "My goodness, what's going on? Why are you here?"
"Chromie? Where are you?" Arthas paused, then realized, wasn't this Chromie, who he had met once in the historical mists of Andorhal?
"I'm hiding in a time rift, it's full of demons here, it's too dangerous—wait, the more serious question is, why are you, and this sword, here?" Chromie rattled off a string of words, but as soon as she finished, her voice stopped as if it had jammed.
After a long pause, when Arthas was getting a bit impatient, Chromie's voice suddenly rang out again, "Alright, alright, I understand! Heavens, why are there such strange things in this world? Won't this cause all sorts of paradoxes? If it weren't for me, I'd even suspect the Infinite Dragonflight was up to something."
"Chromie, get to the point." Arthas could only imagine Chromie, in her Gnome form, gesticulating wildly; he wasn't in the mood to play riddles with the Bronze Dragon right now.
"Oh, okay! First, I must say, unfortunately, Prince Arthas, you haven't entered an illusion, but have truly traveled through time; this is another timeline that doesn't belong to your time stream.
Although I don't know how you got here, for you to be here, something big must have gone wrong; as for the specific reason, I'm not sure.
In the timeline after Deathwing's demise, all dragons' powers have weakened significantly, and we Bronze Dragons can no longer easily cross the time stream as before.
That is to say, I can't send you back to your original time.
So, my advice to you is to leave here quickly; this island is extremely dangerous right now, countless heroes and champions will fall here, and if you die, your original timeline will certainly undergo tremendous changes!
Do you understand? If you don't want to cause big trouble, you need to find a way to leave here immediately and come to the Caverns of Time in Tanaris; we will help you figure something out."
"Are you done? I have a question." Arthas asked thoughtfully after listening to Chromie's string of answers, "Since you said I've traveled through time, why can I still summon Frostmourne? It shouldn't be with me."
Chromie's voice paused, then quickly resumed, "I don't know either! You know, in the eyes of us Bronze Dragons, you're a complete mystery; all possibilities and impossibilities converge on you, who knows how you summoned Frostmourne, which should have been shattered long ago!"
It seems Chronos's research achievements far exceeded his imagination… This guy truly is a genius, creating something like this with the essence of a young dragon.
Arthas shook his head, about to try summoning Invincible to carry him off the island, but a suddenly rising, yet weakly extinguished, flash of Light caught his attention.
Chromie seemed to sense Arthas's movement; she said somewhat nervously, "Hey, hey, you're not going to… This has nothing to do with you, right? They aren't the people you know!"
Arthas paused for a moment and retorted to Chromie, "Do you think I'll go?"
The Bronze Dragon was momentarily speechless, then finally said helplessly, "Go if you want to; can I even stop you? Anyway, after you arrived in this timeline, the subsequent timeline has become a complete blur."
After saying this, Chromie no longer communicated with Arthas; she seemed to hide back within time. Arthas sighed with a smile, returned Frostmourne to the rift, gripped his warhammer, pulled up the hood of his cloak, and strode towards the flashing Light.
…
"Your pathetic Light cannot save you, Fording; there is no place for the Light here." Balnazzar's sneering voice echoed through the valley; beside him were numerous demons, and beneath his feet lay the corpses of Argent Crusade warriors, one after another.
"The Light… will prevail…" Tirion Fordring, Highlord of the Argent Crusade, and the current ashbringer, this white-haired old man now looked weary, but the ashbringer in his hand still radiated scorching Light.
"Why resist stubbornly? What the Light can give you is but a ten-thousandth of fel power; join us, and we will bestow upon you supreme strength." Balnazzar watched Tirion, who was at his last gasp, with mockery; if such a strong-willed warrior were to be transformed into a Legion killing machine, the sight would surely be very interesting.
"Balnazzar, I will personally cut off your head and avenge the fallen heroes!" Tirion took a deep breath, and the last vestiges of Light power within him erupted, supporting him as he stood up; his eyes were filled with determination, and at the same time, he was well aware of his fate.
Balnazzar was right about one thing: on this island shrouded in fel, Tirion could not feel the Light's protection at all; it was already a miracle that he could use his last Light power to lead his troops to escape the encirclement and break through to this point.
The recent battle had left him severely wounded, his strength was fading with every passing second, and even his vision was becoming somewhat blurry, but none of that mattered now; the fallen Argent Crusade soldiers could not have died in vain, Tirion would make Balnazzar and his lackeys pay the price!