A full week slipped quietly after Leylin's return, marked not by urgency or conflict, but by a strange, almost fragile calm.
By day, Leylin divided his time between Silvermoon and Windrunner Village. Some mornings were spent in long discussions with Grand Magister Belo'vir and Magister Nallorath, where arcane theory, ancient Highborne practices, and speculative applications of lost spell matrices filled entire hours without any of them noticing the passage of time.
Other days, he walked beneath the golden boughs of Eversong Woods alongside Vereesa, listening to the soft cadence of her voice as she spoke of the village, of the people who had survived the war, and of the quiet hope slowly returning to Quel'Thalas.
Alleria came and went like a restless wind, sometimes laughing loudly, sometimes falling into pensive silence. Sylvanas, though burdened with Farstrider responsibilities, made time when she could, often speaking with Leylin late into the evening about borders, scouting routes, and the uneasy stillness beyond their lands.
To an outside observer, Leylin seemed content. But beneath that calm surface, his thoughts never truly rested.
History weighed heavily on his mind. Because while Quel'Thalas healed, the world beyond did not remain still.
—
Far from the tranquil forests of Eversong, in lands still scarred by war and shadow, remnants of the Horde gathered like carrion birds circling a corpse.
The Dark Portal had been destroyed. The Horde defeated. The Second War ended. Yet not all orcs had surrendered to despair.
In the bleak reaches beyond Draenor, Teron Gorefiend, the first of the death knights, moved like a specter among the broken clans. His body, no longer truly orc, no longer truly alive was sustained by foul necromancy, his eyes burning with unholy resolve.
He was not alone. Those death knights who had survived the Alliance's victory followed him, bound not by loyalty, but by shared damnation.
Together, they sought out a name long whispered in fear and reverence.
Ner'zhul. Once a shaman of the Shadowmoon clan. Once a mentor to Gul'dan. Now, a broken old orc haunted by failure, guilt, and the whispers of powers beyond his comprehension.
Teron Gorefiend knelt before him. Not in submission but in recognition.
"The Horde still lives," Gorefiend rasped. "And it needs a hand to guide it."
Ner'zhul listened. He listened to tales of scattered clans, leaderless and feral. Of orcs hunted across the Eastern Kingdoms. Of despair festering where pride once burned.
And in that despair, Ner'zhul saw opportunity. The old shaman rose once more not as a servant of demons, but as something colder, darker. His vision was no longer the conquest of Azeroth.
It was an escape. The Legion had used the orcs and discarded them. Azeroth had crushed what remained. If survival was impossible here, then they would seek salvation elsewhere.
Unspoiled worlds. Untouched by war. Worlds ripe for taking.
To accomplish this, Ner'zhul conceived a terrible plan, to open multiple portals on Draenor itself, tearing holes through reality and leading the Horde to new realms beyond the reach of their enemies.
But such a feat required power and knowledge. Knowledge that is long forbidden.
—
Word spread swiftly among the remnants of the Horde.
Dentarg, Ner'zhul's loyal and cunning lieutenant, was the first to answer his call. Ever pragmatic, Dentarg understood that the old shaman's vision offered the Horde something it had never truly possessed before: a future.
Grom Hellscream, Warlord of the Warsong Clan, followed soon after. Battle-hardened and furious at the Horde's defeat, Grom sought war, glory, and a chance to carve his name into legend once more.
Then came Kargath Bladefist, Warlord of the Shattered Hand. Brutal, cunning, and utterly merciless, Kargath cared little for ideals but Ner'zhul's promise of power and bloodshed was enough.
One by one, the banners of fractured clans gathered beneath Ner'zhul's dark standard.
Dentarg and Kargath were soon dispatched to the Thunderlord clan, tasked with bending its warriors to Ner'zhul's will, through persuasion if possible, and slaughter if not.
The Horde was reforming. Not as it once was. But as something more desperate. More dangerous.
—
Yet even this was not enough.
Before Ner'zhul could rebuild the Dark Portal or send his forces back to Azeroth to retrieve the artifacts he required, there remained one final obstacle.
A sealed well of forbidden lore.
An order of death knights, custodians of secrets tied to necromancy, soul-binding, and dimensional anchoring. Their knowledge was essential to stabilizing the portals Ner'zhul envisioned without it, opening multiple gateways would tear Draenor itself apart. Ner'zhul knew this.
And so, preparations began.
The stage was being set for another catastrophe—one that would not simply threaten Azeroth, but countless worlds beyond it.
—
Power was never free. Ner'zhul understood this truth more deeply than most. To tear open the fabric of reality and forge new paths between worlds, raw strength alone would never suffice. The portals he envisioned, stable, enduring gateways to unspoiled realms required anchors.
Relics steeped in ancient magic, artifacts born from titanic wills and terrible histories. And those artifacts lay not on Draenor. They lay in Azeroth.
Within the shadowed ruins of Draenor, beneath a sky fractured by fel scars and lingering arcane turbulence, Ner'zhul stood before the remains of the Dark Portal. The great arch of stone, once shattered by Alliance hands, now pulsed faintly with a sickly green glow.
In his grasp was the Skull of Gul'dan. Grommash Hellscream retrieved it from the Bonechewer Clan chieftain, Hurkan Skullsplinter, allowing Ner'zhul to use Gul'dan's lingering spirit and the skull's power to open new portals.
Even in death, Gul'dan's ambition refused to fade. Fel magic seeped endlessly from the hollow sockets, coiling around Ner'zhul's arms like living serpents. The old shaman's expression twisted not in fear, but in grim resolve.
"This power was never yours alone," Ner'zhul murmured. "You wasted it on demons and conquest. I will use it to ensure survival."
He raised the skull.
Chants—low, guttural, and ancient—echoed through the chamber as Shadowmoon warlocks poured their magic into the ritual. The air screamed. Space folded. Reality groaned as if protesting the violation.
With a thunderous crack, emerald lightning tore through the stone arch.
The Dark Portal reopened.
Fel flames roared to life, forming a swirling gateway to Azeroth once more.
Without hesitation, Ner'zhul sent his servants through.
—
The first waves were savage and hungry.
Orcs who had survived the Second War those scattered, hunted, and cornered across the Eastern Kingdoms felt the call of the portal like a knife twisting in their blood. To them, it was not merely a gateway.
It was salvation.
Among the first to answer was Kilrogg Deadeye, chieftain of the Bleeding Hollow clan. One-eyed, brutal, and bound by visions of his own death, Kilrogg saw in Ner'zhul a leader willing to embrace fate rather than flee from it. His warriors followed with savage devotion, swelling the ranks of the new Horde.
Others came as well, orc survivors from shattered clans, mercenaries, and fel-tainted veterans who had nowhere else to turn.
Yet not all answered the call.
When Teron Gorefiend approached the sons of Blackhand—Rend and Maim Blackhand—they refused. Pride, ambition, and distrust stayed their hand. They sought power of their own, not servitude under a haunted shaman and a death knight.
Gorefiend left them alive. For now.
—
It was during these maneuvers that fate twisted in an unexpected direction. Teron Gorefiend encountered Deathwing.
The Aspect of Death did not appear as a savior or ally, but as a looming catastrophe given form. Madness and calculation burned behind his molten eyes, his massive black scales cracked with fire as if barely containing the destruction within.
Gorefiend did not kneel. Instead, he bargained.
He offered Deathwing something no mortal army could—his children. Eggs stolen, corrupted, and bound to servitude. In exchange, Gorefiend demanded two things:
Safe passage to Draenor.
And the Skull of Gul'dan once their work was complete.
Deathwing laughed—a sound like continents grinding against one another. But he agreed.
For Deathwing, the Horde was merely another tool. Another blade to plunge into Azeroth's already bleeding flesh.
With Deathwing's guidance, the Horde prepared for swift, devastating strikes.
—
The renewed Horde struck like a storm.
Veteran chieftains led the charge—Grom Hellscream, blazing with bloodlust and rage, and Kilrogg Deadeye, whose warriors moved with eerie purpose, as if already dead and uncaring of the outcome.
Alliance defenses, weakened and stretched thin after the war, were caught off guard. Villages burned. Supply lines were severed.
Panic spread through the countryside as the Horde rampaged across familiar battlefields once more. At the heart of the chaos stood Nethergarde Keep.
Grom Hellscream and Rexxar led a brutal assault on the fortress, their forces crashing against its defenses with overwhelming ferocity. To the Alliance commanders, it appeared to be another full-scale invasion—a desperate attempt at revenge.
But it was a lie. A distraction.
While Alliance forces rushed to defend Nethergarde, smaller, highly skilled strike teams slipped through the shadows. Their targets were not cities or armies.
They were artifacts.
Relics hidden in vaults, towers, and sanctums—objects the Alliance barely understood but had safeguarded out of fear and reverence.
—
From the depths of Draenor, Ner'zhul watched and waited.
When the time was right, he sent forth his most trusted and most damned servant.
Teron Gorefiend passed through the Dark Portal once more.
This time, his mission was clear.
He was to claim three artifacts, each vital to Ner'zhul's grand spell, each tied to the fate of Azeroth itself.
The first was the Book of Medivh, grimoire of the last Guardian, containing arcane knowledge capable of shaping worlds.
The second, the Jeweled Scepter of Sargeras, a conduit of titanic power linked to the Dark Titan himself.
And the third, the most audacious of all, the Eye of Dalaran, a living nexus of arcane energy watched over by the Kirin Tor.
As Gorefiend vanished into the emerald light of the portal, Ner'zhul closed his eyes.
Every step taken now brought the Horde closer to salvation or to annihilation.
And far away, unseen by any of them, the currents of fate shifted once more… moving inexorably toward those who would soon be forced to choose whether to stand against history or be crushed beneath it.
Unaware of the precise details but troubled by an unease he could not name, Leylin stood one evening at the edge of Windrunner Village, gazing westward as the sun dipped below the horizon.
The arcane currents around him were calm. Too calm. History was moving again.
And soon, it would come knocking—whether he wished it or not.