Gul'dan, the warlock, stroked his scraggly beard, a sinister glint in his eyes. "'This thing is practically humming with dark energy,' he rasped, his voice like gravel. 'I believe these runestones, and some other, equally nasty ones scattered at the forest's edge, are meticulously placed to form a colossal magical trap and spell barrier. It's like a giant, invisible spiderweb, but for magic.'"
"'What kind of barriers?'" Orgrim grunted, ever the blunt instrument. "'They haven't stopped us, or caused any harm, have they?'"
"'No, no, Warchief,' Gul'dan replied, a condescending smirk playing on his lips. 'That's only because we're physically stomping through the woods and using good old-fashioned weapons. I've got a hunch these runestones are designed to choke off magic, making it so only those pointy-eared elves can cast spells within this cursed range. I've tried to throw a few fireballs myself, and every single one fizzled out like a wet firecracker. But if I back up ten steps, just over that hill, poof! My magic's back in business.'"
Orgrim's face hardened, a grim, thoughtful expression settling over him. This was no laughing matter. He vividly remembered the sheer destructive power of human magic. If his own warlocks hadn't managed to keep those human mages tied up in knots, the orcs would have paid through the nose to conquer them. That was the main, infuriating reason he hadn't just put a hammer to the heads of every last one of the Shadow Council, as much as he despised them. And human magic, he knew, came from these very elves. He was painfully aware of Gul'dan's power; even with his recent injuries, Gul'dan's magic was still the strongest among the orcs, hands down, no contest. And yet, here was Gul'dan, the master of dark arts, admitting his magic was useless.
"'What about the trap?'" Orgrim demanded, his eyes narrowed.
"'Ah, the trap!'" Gul'dan cackled, rubbing his hands together. "'It seems to siphon off a powerful, ancient force hidden beneath the forest floor. As long as those long-eared fools want it... BANG!'" Gul'dan grinned, making a ridiculously exaggerated explosion gesture with his hands and a loud popping sound with his mouth.
"'How many people can it handle at once?'" Orgrim asked, a flicker of concern in his eyes.
Gul'dan raised five gnarled fingers, a grim smile spreading across his face.
"'Five thousand?'" Orgrim asked tentatively, his voice betraying a hint of unease.
"'Fifty thousand,' Gul'dan corrected, a triumphant gleam in his eyes. 'And if we stand densely enough in any five spots within the rune's specified range, it wouldn't be a problem to roast ten thousand trolls in one place. Like a goblin's barbecue, but with more screaming.'"
The Warchief immediately recalled the day Stormwind fell, when thousands of orc warriors had been roasted alive in the inferno. Even though the Blackrock Clan orcs had a certain resistance to fire, they weren't immune to getting burned to a crisp. If the fire was big enough, people got hurt, and people died. Period. When Orgrim heard the answer, he was genuinely shocked. He simply and directly raised his Hammer of Doom, its dark metal gleaming. His meaning was crystal clear: Can we break this thing?
"'Is there any way to destroy it?'"
"'No, no, no, Warchief, that would be such a waste!'" Gul'dan practically purred, his hunched body exuding an even fouler, more evil aura. "'I can turn it into a storm altar, using the power drawn from the runestone to strengthen living creatures in some... interesting ways.'"
"'No orcs will take part in your 'reinforcement,''" the Warchief refused sternly, his voice like a thunderclap.
"'They have indeed become stronger, Warchief. You've seen it yourself.'"
Orgrim stared at Gul'dan with half-closed eyes, radiating murderous intent. "'Stronger, yes. Greener, definitely. Less intelligent, absolutely. And more violent? You bet your life on it.'"
Gul'dan bowed his head deeply, a picture of false humility. He wasn't about to openly butt heads with the Warchief at this particular moment. "'I plan to strengthen the ogres,' he offered. 'Perhaps some minor physical mutations will occur, but that has nothing to do with the orcs. Your noble warriors will remain untouched.'"
If it's none of your business, keep your trap shut, Orgrim thought, but didn't say. Feeling that the recent losses of the Horde's elite had already put a dent in its combat power, Orgrim grudgingly agreed, just as he had previously allowed those reanimated human death knights to join the Horde. Beggars couldn't be choosers, and Gul'dan's twisted science was a necessary evil.
The preparation went smoothly, for a warlock ritual, but it was incredibly time-consuming. Originally, Orgrim thought that Zul'jin would be pacing a hole in the ground, impatient as a goblin with a ticking bomb. But who knew that Zul'jin, surprisingly zen, merely shrugged and said, "'My ancestors spent hundreds of years trying to break through this barrier. I don't mind waiting for a few days or months as long as I can break through it. The trolls can wait. We've got all the time in the world.'" After that, Zul'jin, ever the cheerful one, went off to hunt the outer elf patrols for fun, treating it like a leisurely afternoon stroll.
After Gul'dan used his evil dark magic and twisted rituals to break through the outermost layer of the runestone's defenses, he commanded the two-headed ogre hero, Cho'gall, to dismantle the massive runestone in an orderly and careful manner. This was a job that required both high-level engineering (for an ogre, anyway) and brute physical strength. Trying to dismantle it with direct violence would result in the unfortunate ogre ending up right next to it, but in very small pieces.
Case in point: a clumsy ogre once triggered the protective barrier on a runestone. What happened? The unfortunate lug was launched thirty meters into the air, and then his entire body was scattered into over ten thousand parts, evenly spread over an area of nearly one hundred square meters. Even if that ogre's mother came here, she would never, in a million years, recognize that this was her child. It took them eight excruciating hours to completely dig out the runestone. Fortunately, Orgrim had arrived here first with some elite troops and a vanguard mainly composed of trolls, otherwise he would have had to let nearly one hundred thousand troops twiddle their thumbs during this agonizing period. Now, the one hundred thousand-strong army was still advancing at a steady pace, sixty kilometers away, none the wiser.
Here, Cho'gall had skillfully broken the massive stone into several still-large pieces, like a giant with a hammer and chisel. He then brought five of them to the clearing, where he spent hours reshaping the stones and placing them in the correct pentagram formation on a tested clearing above a forest energy leyline.
"'Are you all ready?'" Gul'dan asked impatiently, tapping his foot. Not far away, Cho'gall shook his head, the huge ogre grunting like a pig, his strong arms, bulging with explosive power, carrying the last piece of runestone fragment, which weighed at least five tons, and walking on the open space. "'It's all right now!'" he shouted, rubbing his shoulder with a hand the size of a dinner plate.
Gul'dan finally nodded in satisfaction, a rare sight. He really couldn't imagine how to manipulate the original hill-like runestone without sufficient labor. The runestone chunks were so large, so heavy, and so oddly offset that a couple of ogres could lift them, but the job would require at least a dozen orcs, all grunting and groaning. Orgrim, of course, hated magic and would never allow his "noble" orcs to do such a dangerous, magic-infused thing. Fortunately, the Warchief had allowed Gul'dan to use some ogres for this dirty work, and Cho'gall, being a two-headed ogre himself, could command his one-headed brethren more easily than any orc could. Yes, facing a group of muscular idiots, you'd go absolutely stark raving mad, no matter if you were a world-class wise man or just a common grunt.
Gul'dan, in his twisted genius, could even figure out how the elves had first moved the intact runestones to their original locations. That was physical work, pure muscle, nothing to do with magic. Magic was powerful, sure, but compared to the energy required to use magic to provide a lifting force of one hundred kilograms, it was far more efficient to just use slaves directly. Forest trolls were similar in strength to ogres and, surprisingly, much smarter, and they were better at following specific commands. But the elves, those dainty creatures, didn't have the habit of raising troll slaves for a long time... a missed opportunity, if you asked Gul'dan.
The stone was finally in place, in its correct position, radiating a faint, ominous hum. Even Gul'dan's critical eye could find no fault with it. Gul'dan raised his hand, and the five orc warlocks, his loyal (for now) minions, each chose one of the runestones and stood beside them, their faces grim.
Fortunately, Orgrim, that meathead with only conspiracy and muscle in his skull, didn't kill all my people, Gul'dan thought to himself, a rare moment of gratitude. Fortunately, this was the case, otherwise there would be no possibility of completing this grand ritual. As always, Gul'dan believed that this would be successful, but he was still not completely sure. However, as an evil warlock with a supreme spirit of inquiry, there was nothing he could not sacrifice. And besides, Gul'dan fully believed that if he failed, he would somehow survive unscathed. He always did.
"'Let's get started!'" he hissed, nodding to Cho'gall, who was currently shouting at the gathered ogres, trying to get them in line. This was the moment of truth, the recruiting of guinea pigs. There was a chaotic shoveling (which was actually more of a brawl) and a chorus of grunting and shouting before the weakest, most unfortunate of the ogres finally shuffled forward. Of course, even if this guy was the thinnest among the ogres, he still weighed several times that of a human and was twice as tall, a true mountain of dull-witted muscle.
Cho'gall barked orders at the ogre, who shrugged his massive shoulders, looking heroically ready to die, and lumbered into the open space between the stones. He stood in the center of the pentagram and waited, motionless, like a particularly ugly statue. One good thing about ogres was that they would stand still when asked to do so. If they weren't under another command or looking for food, ogres could stand there for hours, motionless like marble statues, probably thinking about their next meal.
Gul'dan often thought that these creatures evolved from stone, which would explain their thick skin that could easily resist swords, as well as their shockingly low intelligence. If Gul'dan ordered them to "move forward," they would first spend a few seconds thinking about their lives, perhaps recalling the delicious human food they had eaten last night and drooling, and then move forward in a random direction, killing anything they disliked on the way, sometimes even including their own kind or theoretical masters. Given a choice, Gul'dan would never give orders to these idiots over Cho'gall. With Cho'gall here, at least these idiots would be on the right track and wouldn't have to worry about hurting their own people. Of course, efficiency was still a mystery. Sometimes they could think about life while someone was stabbing them in the thigh with a knife. Only when the two-headed ogre was present could their combat efficiency reach an acceptable level.
Gul'dan's thoughts snapped back to the present. He raised his arms, his body beginning to hum and resonate with the dark energy bestowed upon him by Kil'jaeden, the deputy leader of the Burning Legion, back on Draenor. The evil power tore through the planes, ripped across space, and poured into Gul'dan. As a living conduit, he immediately divided it into five parts and transferred it to the soul crystals embedded on the chests of the five warlocks, his minions, and finally injected it into the runestones they were facing.
The stench of decay, the reek of corruption, the very essence of decadence began to corrode the pure arcane power that originated from nature itself. This was not without cost. The source of nature instinctively recoiled, resisting the corrosion and invasion with all its might. A brilliant, blinding light burst out from the depths of the earth, directly transmitted to the runestone. The raw energy, visible to the naked eye, violently attacked the five warlocks who dared to attempt to pollute the sacred runestone.
The force of the counterattack was so violent that the skull head of the skull staff of the warlock standing in the south cracked with a sickening CRACK! Less than half a second after the foul smell of death leaked out, the power of the earth seemed to find an outlet and suddenly attacked the warlock, wrapping around him like a vengeful vine.
"'Woo——'" The unlucky guy, clearly lacking in raw power, was always the first to suffer. The power of nature crashed into that poor warlock's body like a raging tidal wave. You could see unknown, vile plants, similar to young grass sprouts, bursting forth from every pore on his arms, twisting and writhing.
"'Waste!'" Gul'dan spat, utterly disgusted. Without a second thought, Gul'dan grabbed the doomed warlock, shoving him aside like a sack of potatoes, and took his place, his own body now serving as the conduit. Three seconds later, Gul'dan, to his utter chagrin, had to do the same thing as the two-headed ogre mage, Cho'gall, getting his own hands dirty. Gul'dan was not happy about having to step onto the field himself, his face a thundercloud.
Fortunately, the remaining three warlocks were obviously made of sterner stuff than the two poor dead ghosts. Now, the five warlocks, including Gul'dan, each chose a stone in front of them and began to infuse it with raw, dark energy. As all the rune lines on all five runestones filled with black light and vibrated ominously, Gul'dan concentrated, his eyes glowing with malevolent power, and chanted a short, guttural spell. Every note of the evil spell contained a forbidden, bloody meaning, a promise of pain, which made Orgrim, watching from the sidelines, visibly uncomfortable. The Warchief frowned, but unfortunately, he had no choice, as shamans were not good at breaking the enemy's magical defenses, and his only shaman, Zuluhed, was obviously more than two levels lower than Gul'dan.
More dark energy arced along Gul'dan's wrinkled, scarred skin, from his scarlet fingertips into his runestone, a visible flow of corruption. But this time, the energy was no longer a simple infusion. The overflowing demonic aura transformed into a black comet, streaking through the stone far in front of his left at high speed, then leaping to the nearest stone on his right. The demonic power did not stop; it continued to jump to the nearest stone on the left, then to the far right, and finally returned to the stone directly in front of him. A glowing, pulsating pentagram, forged of pure darkness, connected all five stones. Where the black comet passed, countless complicated, twisted spells emerged on the land that quickly turned black, scorched and lifeless.
The next moment, the sky above the entire altar suddenly darkened, as if a giant, unseen hand had pulled a shroud over the sun. The colossal amount of energy, corroded by the darkness, suddenly rushed up to a height of a thousand meters, and then exploded in the sky with a silent, terrifying force. A strange, twisted storm soon appeared in the heavens, consisting of a clockwise tornado of brilliant white light and a counterclockwise tornado of abyssal black dark light. The storm stretched straight from the ground to a height of thousands of meters, a towering pillar of conflicting energies, and could be clearly seen even hundreds of miles away, a beacon of impending doom.
This horrific storm sent shivers down the spines of everyone in the entire area and all the high elves who were fighting the trolls, making them pause in their desperate struggle. The ogre in the pentagram still stood there like a stone statue, stiff as a board, though Gul'dan could already see clear, unadulterated fear in that poor lug's eyes. Unfortunately for him, he was facing Cho'gall, a natural two-headed ogre, the absolute ruler among ogres. No matter how scared he was, even if Cho'gall wanted him to die, he had to obey.
Good, Gul'dan picked a good guy, Gul'dan thought, a truly evil grin splitting his face.
The power of the earth, raw and ancient, began to resonate with the corrupted sky. The power on the demonized runestone was finally directed by Gul'dan to the center of the pentagram – to the ogre who was standing there, not trembling physically, but clearly extremely shaken inside. A black halo surrounded him. It started with one circle, then countless circles, spiraling around him like a demonic vortex. The black energy seemed to be real, tangible, pouring onto the ogre's body, pouring more and more, and finally transforming into a huge, impenetrable black sphere. The entire ogre was swallowed up by this dark giant ball, a void impenetrable to light. Immeasurable dark energy, a living, writhing storm, penetrated into the ogre's body through every pore and hole, every crack in his thick hide.
"'Ahhhhhh——'" The ogre finally couldn't help but scream, a guttural shriek of pure agony. After a moment, the screams doubled, as both of his heads, in a symphony of pain, shrieked at the same time, a truly horrifying duet.