Chapter 128: Mixing Milk into Water

Hello everyone, translater here. As a preview of things to come please enjoy the revamped translations I made for today's releases. This will be more or less the style moving forward for the next month. Hopefully, you find the quality just that much better than previous iterations. 🙇

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Duke was dead.

Again.

Months had passed, and he had almost forgotten the taste of death.

Some things one could never get used to, like dying over and over again.

In the game, wiping out on a raid boss, running back to the corpse repeatedly, it was no big deal.

But in this real Azeroth, the punishment for death was far worse than Duke had imagined.

Duke's soul wasn't in a graveyard near Karazhan, nor was there an option to resurrect at the graveyard.

His soul remained beside his own corpse, surrounded by a bleak and lifeless landscape, once unfamiliar and unnerving, stretching to the limits of his vision.

In this monochromatic world, dark gray, almost black clouds resembling tattered rags floated everywhere. They seemed to be pulled by some invisible force emanating from Sargeras, swirling slowly around him like a slow-spinning tornado.

Just as he had feared, his soul was extremely vulnerable to corruption and erosion when encountering higher-ranking demons.

Now, it was bound by the evil power of the Demon King.

System prompt: "You have been slain by Sargeras, the Demon King. Due to the concentrated demonic power, your soul's strength is now 70, and your humanity is at 60%."

"Warning, you are within the range of Sargeras' soul-corrupting influence. Every 5 minutes, you will lose 1 point of soul strength and 1% of your humanity. You cannot leave Sargeras' 100-meter radius in your soul state."

The only consolation was that Duke could still see the option to resurrect at his corpse, and Sargeras seemed unaware of his unique soul.

He dared not resurrect.

Resurrecting carelessly would only lead to being instantly killed again, and it would make Sargeras more vigilant.

But he couldn't wait too long either.

Otherwise, he would have no choice but to join the Burning Legion as a demon.

Duke could wait, but he wouldn't sit idly by. When the time came, he would naturally fight with all his might.

However, even in his soul state, Duke was far from idle.

He achieved something most mortals could never imagine – he hacked into Karazhan's defense system.

This wasn't solely his accomplishment; much of the credit went to a system sprite and a special presence.

The power of the system sprite was undeniable. In the world before the transition, where computers existed, they handled most of the complex but relatively simple tasks.

Azeroth was different.

Without magic, it was a world where military officers shouted orders on the battlefield, signaling flares were used for long-distance communication, and cavalry served as messengers.

Even with magic, the operation of magic circles and other defensive systems was largely simple, trigger-based information feedback. For example, if someone triggered a warning system in Karazhan, even the most sophisticated sensor could barely detect the intruder's strength, number, and other basic information. To evaluate the enemy's strength in detail, a mage had to use the "Mage's Eye" or other scrying means to personally confirm.

If Medivh were still the master of Karazhan, Duke might have had no way to succeed. But with Sargeras as the master, it was a different story.

To deceive others, the entire magic defense system of Karazhan was designed in a human style, which Sargeras found difficult to use. After Sargeras completely controlled Medivh, he didn't have the time to change the entire mage tower into a system that demons were accustomed to because he was busy scheming against the Council of Six in Tirisfal.

Sargeras didn't think he would need to use it, leaving a huge gap for Duke to exploit.

Moreover, Duke had an accomplice— the soul of Medivh's biological father, Aegwynn's lover, Nielas Aran.

After Duke had dealt with Felhoof, he went to visit the soul of Aran. At this moment, Aran still had his sanity. Upon learning that his beloved son Medivh had been corrupted by Sargeras, Aran resolutely decided to help.

Few people knew that Medivh's achievements were not only due to his mother Aegwynn's powerful bloodline and the inheritance of the Guardian's power but also the teachings of Nielas Aran, the former court mage of Stormwind Kingdom.

So, when Medivh built Karazhan, he followed Aran's knowledge and design concepts.

With the hardworking system sprite and Medivh's dad as an inside man, it would be strange if Duke didn't make waves.

After the system sprite completely analyzed the defense system, Duke was not just adding water to milk but rather adding milk to water to deceive Sargeras.

Outside Karazhan, in the half-empty space, the seemingly fierce "slaughter" had just begun.

In the void near Karazhan, which appeared to be an ordinary building, numerous intricate and precise magic circles suddenly emerged. Different colors represented connections to different elemental realms.

With the support of a huge mana pool, these magic circles were able to open connections to the elemental realms to their limits.

Accompanied by dazzling magical brilliance, huge scorching fireballs, long ice-cold frost arrows, and whirlwinds capable of easily cutting through steel poured out in the direction of the countless dragons.

A hundred?

A thousand?

No, it was a magical storm consisting of tens of thousands of spells surrounding the entire Karazhan.

This magical storm easily swept the dragon swarm into it from a kilometer away.

"Aegwynn—" The largest red dragon in the swarm roared angrily in Aegwynn's direction.

Seeing this situation, the Red Dragon Queen's first reaction was that she had been tricked.

Dragons had a fairly impressive magic resistance, but it was only impressive and far from the legendary complete magic immunity. With such a massive amount of high-level magic pouring down, it was evident that the dragons would be severely wounded after this battle.

No wonder Alexstrasza was furious.

She could almost imagine her children, her people, being pierced through the wings or bodies by powerful magic, screaming in despair as they fell from the sky, shedding a shower of noble blood.

However, after the torrential attack, it seemed… not a single dragon had fallen.

Huh? What the heck?! (To be continued.)