Nozdormu desperately tried to find a reason to object, to prove that he wasn't an accomplice in Malygos's death in the future. He tried to find the cause and effect in the chaotic and complex timelines, but in the end, he saw a scene that made him despair:
Because Nozdormu foresaw the death of Malygos, his most respected brother, he warned him.
Although as the guardian of time, he knew that this scene would definitely happen in the future, he didn't want his brother to be killed without knowing anything.
Malygos learned that mortals had privately copied the blue dragon's magical artifact, the Focusing Iris, and combined with Nozdormu's prediction of his own death in the future, he was determined to launch a "purge" against spellcasters and even all races with spellcasting talents, a Nexus War.
In the future, it was because he recklessly extracted magic net energy, condensed enough arcane energy to completely destroy Azeroth ten times, and prepared to launch a crazy act of cleansing that led to the alliance of humans and the Red Dragonflight to stop him.
It was never because Alexstrasza betrayed the Guardian Dragons and joined Aiden to kill Malygos that he died. It was because he courted death himself that the Red Dragon and mortals had to unite to eliminate him.
The Blue Dragon King has gone mad—only a madman would try to launch a Nexus War, he has completely forgotten the duty of the Guardian Dragons.
The Nexus War is almost equivalent to a world-destroying disaster. Malygos's crazy behavior is a death wish!
Seeing Nozdormu retreating, Aiden continued, "I will also destroy the Caverns of Time on another timeline because of you—if you hadn't gone to other timelines to find ways to deal with me before, I wouldn't have crossed over to other timelines at Chromie's request to try to bring you back. It was because of this that I met another you on the last timeline."
He paused, staring at Nozdormu with stern eyes: "To be honest, the Nozdormu in the timeline where King Blackmoore was born was just as crazy as you, just as indiscriminate!"
Hearing these accusations, Nozdormu almost collapsed to the ground. His figure shrank sharply, and then turned into the appearance of a high elf.
Before, he showed his true form just for a psychological sense of superiority, a sense of security that his strength and size surpassed Aiden. But now, he just wanted to hide, just wanted to cover his ears, just wanted to have never heard these words.
Because every word of Aiden was like a knife piercing into his heart, and what was even more terrifying was that each of these facts was accusing him of dereliction of duty and abuse of his divine power.
He is no different from the current Malygos, even abusing the power of time earlier than the other party.
Nozdormu had always insisted that he was right, but the facts proved that he had completely embarked on a wrong path.
Seeing the almost collapsed Nozdormu, Aiden also felt a little unbearable, but he knew that this was the best opportunity to deter him. He couldn't bear Nozdormu continuing to use his ability to travel through time and explore the future to interfere with him in the future.
So he chose to press on step by step, further destroying Nozdormu's psychological defense:
"I have seen the real Aman'Thul, and only then did I know what a real guardian of time should be like. I even know more about the truth of time than you do. If you keep indulging in the web-like timeline, and can't tell who is the real self and who is the illusion on that chaotic timeline, I can only advise you—remember your original duty and your real enemy, and only do what you should do."
"Don't interfere with what I'm doing anymore, and don't use any means to interfere with the past and the future. Deal with yourself in the future, deal with the Infinite Dragonflight, that's enough. I'll do the rest, I believe I'll do better than you, better than any guardian."
"Please don't mess with me, this is the best way for you to protect this world."
"Please remember this sentence. Thank you!"
Aiden strode out of the Caverns of Time, and before he had taken a few steps, he ran into Chromie, who had come after hearing the news.
"Aiden, you're really back!" Her voice had an upward inflection, as if it was full of surprise, and the exaggerated facial expressions also showed the same emotion.
"Yes, I'm back." Aiden nodded to her.
He checked the timeline here and found that although he had experienced many things in other timelines, and even experienced hundreds of years of time travel when he met Aman'Thul outside the timeline, only six days had actually passed from leaving this timeline to returning.
'Sure enough, Qilun was right, time and space are both illusions of blurred senses. Time travel is actually just a journey of memory.'
Chromie looked him up and down and said happily, "You look good, Nozdormu didn't make things difficult for you, did he? He came back yesterday. I'm really sorry this time, I lost you halfway." She pouted, lowered her head, and her tone also lowered, appearing very guilty.
Aiden couldn't help but smile and said, "It's alright, fortunately I didn't get lost. Now I'm back, aren't I?"
Chromie was forgiven by him, and then showed a smile again. She explained: "Actually, after I arrived on that timeline, I saw that you wouldn't arrive until four years later, so I left early. But when I waited until the time I estimated arrived, and wanted to go there again, I found that the timeline had been hidden. Tell me, what exactly happened after that?"
Chromie looked at Aiden curiously, "Nozdormu should have known, but even if I advised him, he would still be furious when he mentioned this. I'm really curious, what did you do again?"
"Some... things that are easier to stimulate him." Aiden couldn't help but smile when he thought of Nozdormu's current appearance: "If you ask him now, he will definitely tell you—I have to go back first, we'll talk later!"
After parting, Chromie entered Nozdormu's lair with a puzzled look. She sensed the slight vibration in the Caverns of Time before and rushed over, thinking that something unexpected had happened to Nozdormu again. It wasn't until she saw Aiden coming out that she immediately guessed something—could it be that these two people had another fight?
She saw that Aiden didn't seem to be in trouble, so could it be that Nozdormu lost?
Chromie couldn't believe this guess. How could the Dragon King be so easily defeated? But when she rushed to the destination, she happened to see Nozdormu curled up in a corner, looking lost.
She rubbed her eyes in disbelief, confirming that she had not seen wrong—Nozdormu really lost?
Chromie quickly leaned over, noticing that Nozdormu's eyes were almost out of focus, and he was babbling something there.
"Messing around, everything I do is messing around?"
"It was me who caused Malygos's death, it was me who started the initial cause..."
"No, no, how is it possible—I just wanted to save him!"
"Messing around... Am I really... messing around?"
What's going on?
Chromie couldn't figure out the situation. She had never seen such a fragile and confused side of Dragon King Nozdormu. He, who mastered the secrets of time, was the most rational, even the most indifferent, of all the Guardian Dragons, even all the creatures of Azeroth.
He knew everything about the past and future of this world, nothing could escape his monitoring, and no situation would make him truly feel surprised.
Before the Burning Legion arrived, he had already seen this scene and knew that the other party would eventually fail. So he wasn't worried about the fate of Azeroth, and even asked the Guardian Dragons not to interfere in this matter, because the mortal races could solve this crisis on their own.
The Nightmare Invasion, the Scourge, and even the upcoming Cataclysm, all of these disasters were within his expectations, and the results had already been seen.
The development of the world strictly followed the timeline setting, with almost no deviation.
Nozdormu has no enemies, his only enemy is himself.
When he received the ability and responsibility of the Guardian of Time, Aman'Thul told him about his death date. He had long known that it was the past self who killed the future self. He was not prepared to change his fate.
But now the situation is different.
After returning from another timeline, Nozdormu still couldn't find a definite way to deal with Aiden, and was even told by his wife and son that he had misunderstood Aiden before, and that the other party's purpose in destroying the World Tree and bringing Nightmare creatures into the dream was entirely to stop the true Nightmare King.
This news completely lost the foundation of his revenge, and he could only cling to the remaining two points: Aiden used Deathwing to summon a continent, and Aiden destroyed the Caverns of Time and absorbed its power.
He had anticipated Aiden's arrival the next day and had been waiting for the opportunity to question him.
However, all he received was a blow to his spirit.
He had even lost the last reason to blame Aiden.
What frightened him even more was that upon his return, he discovered that the future of Azeroth had become blurred, with infinite variables appearing on the timeline of the future. The singular future that was destined to gradually lead to the "End of Time" had become unpredictable. The current timeline had become forked, with each divergence leading to completely different outcomes.
Some were better, some were worse.
But no one knew whether the true future would lead to a better or a worse outcome.
The future was no longer predetermined, which also meant that he no longer had any reason to blame Aiden or anyone else for things that hadn't happened, accusing them of being destroyers of the timeline.
Nozdormu didn't know why this was happening, but if he were to ask Aiden, he would receive an answer from him:
As the essence of the world was revealed, the "timeline" system in the underlying settings of the World of Warcraft, which was used to obscure people's senses, was becoming ineffective. The timeline that Aiden was on was truly a "free script" from this point on.
There was never a predetermined future. There was none in the past, and there certainly wouldn't be any in the future. Nor would there be reversed cause and effect—the world that seemed mysterious but was actually just a randomly generated causal relationship was actually just an illusion, merely a loophole patched up to supplement the setting.
The essence of the world became clearer than ever before in Aiden's eyes, but in Nozdormu's eyes, it became more blurred than ever before.
Nozdormu thought that the original world with a clear distinction between past and future was normal, while Aiden believed the opposite—that this was what the real world should be like.
—
Aiden was only gone for a week, and the worgen crisis had just been resolved. The Red Dragon and Green Dragon legions had respectively launched operations against the Blue Dragonflight in Northrend and Kalimdor, and the teleportation array at Wyrmrest Temple hadn't even been opened yet. Because Khadgar and the others who went there had only just arrived with the Red Dragonflight.
From the perspective of time in this world, Aiden had simply gone on a business trip and returned to Los Angeles.
But no one knew what he had experienced in those seven days.
More than a dozen timelines, countless historical events, and finally, the journey through the temporal turbulence on that timeline, outside the timeways, in Nozdormu's realm, witnessing the historical changes of Earth over several centuries together with Aman'Thul.
The actual length of these seven days was several centuries, a time span more than ten times longer than Aiden's original age.
Although compared to long-lived races such as elves, several hundred years was nothing, for Aiden, the amount of information he received during this time had completely changed him from who he was seven days ago.
He was like emerging from a cocoon, seeing the vast world outside; like parting the mist, seeing the first ray of light.
After returning to Los Angeles, Aiden listened to Ophiel's detailed report on the worgen disaster and praised, "You all did a great job, especially Ahri—where is she?"
"She... doesn't seem to be here. She should be in Theramore," Ophiel said with a strange expression.
Aiden asked curiously, "Does she like making new friends?"
Ahri's charm is irresistible. Whether in Valoran or Azeroth, she is a peerless beauty in the eyes of most people, but she also has her own troubles—in Valoran, one issue of the 'Journal of Justice' published rumors, from who knows where, about her and Sun Wukong.
Because this weekly magazine, which had the highest subscription rate of all newspapers and periodicals in Valoran, made this matter known to everyone. This had always bothered her a lot.
Of course, she had interactions with Sun Wukong, after all, they were both heroes of the Institute of War, but there was no ambiguous relationship between them—after transforming from a fox into a woman, she gradually developed human aesthetics and liked handsome men; but in Wukong's eyes, humans were just hairless monkeys, and even the most beautiful woman looked like a chimpanzee to him, indescribably ugly.
So many beautiful fairies and demons on the Journey to the West had never been able to bewitch him, let alone those in Valoran.
The two heroes clearly had no feelings for each other at all, but busybodies liked to pull a monkey and a fox, who were essentially different from humans, both animal spirits, and different from each other, together, fabricating a "heart-wrenching" love story between the two.
After that, no one dared to make a move on Ahri. Even if she was exceptionally charming, she was already regarded as a married woman and kept at a distance by all members of the opposite sex—no one would try to steal a woman from the Monkey King. Who didn't know that this monkey was bad-tempered and incredibly fierce in battle?
Ahri was left unattended from then on, and she even began to suspect that she had become ugly.
After finally discovering the reason, Ahri avoided Sun Wukong wherever he was. That's why she left the Fields of Justice last time and ran to Dustwallow Marsh to "relax." What was unexpected was that she was so lucky that she captured Archmage Arugal, allowing the worgen curse disaster to be perfectly resolved.
Because of this, she became an idol figure in Theramore almost overnight—beautiful and sexy, and she also saved all the people who were dominated by fear of the worgen curse, which simply drove people crazy for her.
More importantly, the people of Theramore didn't know about her rumors with the monkey.
Enjoying the feeling of being sought after by everyone once again, Ahri was even less willing to go back so soon...
—
In the upcoming Nexus War, mortals have to fight an incredibly powerful Aspect Dragon, so understanding Malygos and gathering information has become a very important thing.
Everyone quickly gathered enough information from Aiden, the Red Dragonflight, the Green Dragonflight, and the Bronze Dragonflight. This information introducing the origin of the Aspect Dragons made those who saw it gasp at the enemy they were about to face:
Tens of thousands of years ago, there was an incredibly huge "proto-dragon" on the land of Azeroth, whose size exceeded all other dragons by hundreds of times—considering Alexstrasza's size, one can imagine that this proto-dragon was definitely an unimaginably large monster.
It was called "Father of Dragons," Galakrond.
There was no creature in this world more powerful than it. If it wanted to destroy the world, almost no creature could stop it. Because even the powerful Titan Watchers were no match for it.
Tyr, the "Guardian of Order," lost an arm in the battle with Galakrond. He later fitted himself with a silver metal prosthesis. Because of this, Archbishop Faol and Uther and others who later created the Order of the Silver Hand cited this allusion and named the first Order of Paladins the Silver Hand.
Fortunately, for a long time, it had no intention of destroying the world and had been at peace with other proto-dragons. Until one day, its body began to mutate, and its mind became insane. It began to hunt other proto-dragons. Proto-dragons that were killed or bitten by it would turn into plague dragons—just like the plague spread by the Scourge today.
The mad Galakrond began to destroy the world. Every time it ate a proto-dragon, its size increased by one point. No one knew what kind of monster it would eventually evolve into.
In order to stop it, five heroes among the proto-dragons, possessing both wisdom and power, stood up: Malygos, Nozdormu, Neltharion, as well as Alexstrasza and Ysera sisters united and vowed to end the madness of the Father of Dragons.
This was not an easy task. However, through all kinds of difficulties and dangers, the five proto-dragons, leading other proto-dragons who were unwilling to be eaten by Galakrond, together, under the guidance and help of Tyr, finally defeated Galakrond and killed it.
Galakrond's massive corpse fell in what is now Dragonblight in Northrend. Travelers passing through its tomb, and even most dragons, do not know that this mountain-like place is actually just the place where the corpse of the Father of Dragons is buried. And the dragons who know this always think of the fear that Galakrond once brought them whenever they see here.