Chapter 193: The Miracle Sea King

Just beyond the city walls, at Stormwind Harbor, tens of thousands of elite Stormwind soldiers witnessed the final moments of their beloved city.

Flames shot skyward, illuminating the entire night sky. The inferno was so intense that it could probably be seen from miles away. Perhaps from this day on, Stormwind City would also be known as the City of Flames.

"What is this...?" Unable to contain his curiosity, Laine asked Duke, who had returned under the escort of Lothar and his elite troops.

This was no ordinary fire. If one had to describe it in a word, it was a purgatory.

Duke wiped the sweat from his brow with a towel handed to him by Windsor.

"It's the magical defense system left behind by Medivh. His original plan was to set up a magic circle similar to a firewall in every canal to prevent an enemy from breaking through all the districts at once. But I made some modifications."

"Modifications?" Laine, of course, knew about the divisions of the city. The reason for the canals and walls separating the districts of Stormwind City was to resist the enemy step by step. In fact, there were secret tunnels between the districts so that even if some were overrun, they could still launch surprise attacks and reclaim the territory.

"Yes, I had the suicide squad set fires throughout the city and blocked the streets, driving all the orcs into the river, and then..."

Duke didn't finish, but everyone present was smart enough to understand. It was a chain of strategies.

By driving the orcs together and exploiting their psychological blind spots, the safest place was turned into a true deathtrap.

No one would have thought that the very canals that could save them from the flames would become the deadliest weapon.

Suddenly, everyone felt lucky that Duke was on their side.

Having killed the Horde chieftain and burned the Horde's hundred-thousand-strong army with a single massive fire, this glorious achievement easily cheered the soldiers.

The cheering didn't last long, for a simple reason: everyone's heart was still heavy.

Tens of thousands of soldiers gathered at Stormwind Harbor, making the huge harbor square incredibly crowded with fifty thousand people. Although they had collapsed the cliffs near the harbor with goblin explosives to prevent a Horde ambush, these fifty thousand would have no escape route if the Horde attacked again after the fire was extinguished.

This was no ordinary group of recruits. Many of them were militia or local garrisons, with only about 60% being regular army. But they all had one thing in common: these fifty thousand were all battle-hardened veterans who had fought the orcs more than once. It was no exaggeration to say that these fifty thousand were the essence of the entire Stormwind Kingdom.

If these fifty thousand could evacuate safely, Lothar had confidence that he could train an army of two hundred thousand in a year with these fifty thousand as the seed.

If these fifty thousand were wiped out here...

Lothar's previous concerns were well-founded. In history, Lothar had fled with the widowed Queen and young Prince Anduin, as well as a few thousand soldiers, and found themselves under the control of other human kingdoms.

But tonight, history had taken a different turn.

Lothar brushed back his sweat-soaked hair and patted Duke on the shoulder, "Alright! Now it's your turn to perform."

The fifty thousand soldiers parted silently, like the tide, each one filled with awe.

The man striding before them was the hero Duke.

Many people thought that this excessively young man was a mystery.

In just a year, he had risen rapidly to become an important minister in the kingdom. He possessed not only immense arcane power and unparalleled courage but also the wisdom of a top-tier strategist.

From subjugating the naga to expand Stormwind's Pearl Shipping Line to launching a surprise attack on Karazhan to slay Sargeras, and then burning the Horde's massive army to the ground, culminating in the Flames of the City.

Duke Marcus had become a legend.

Now, as everyone realized they were about to become part of this ongoing legend, they couldn't help but feel awed.

No one knew what Duke was going to do next, but they all believed he could do it.

That was the trust built on a foundation of proven accomplishments.

Duke had proven himself time and again, and now it was just another step for his legend to reach new heights.

Under the watchful eyes of thousands, Duke walked onto the dock, stepping towards the dark ocean.

Above the ocean's surface, the wind was strong, and the waves were raging. The only certainty was that there were no ships on the water, not even a single rowboat.

Duke had personally promised each Stormwind high-level official that he would safely evacuate these 50,000 soldiers, but how could he do it?

"Is Archmage Duke preparing to open a portal?" A knight with some knowledge whispered to his comrade.

"Impossible! I've seen a mage's portal before, and I've heard they're very unstable. Even the Sky Mages can't teleport more than ten people at a time," another knight replied.

"It's not a portal," said Marshal Bolvar. "Even the Dark Portal that brought the orcs here couldn't transport more than 500 people at once. Let alone 50,000 people."

Unbeknownst to them, Duke had already reached the end of the dock.

"Ah!" Amidst the startled gasps of many, Duke seemed to lose his footing and fall into the sea from the stone dock.

But in the next moment, Duke stepped onto solid ground.

Ice!

It was ice!

An intense cold spread instantly from Duke's feet, freezing a large area in the blink of an eye. The oncoming waves solidified in front of Duke. The turbulent sea lost all of its energy, lying still and submissive before Duke—in the form of frozen ice.

A vast expanse of sea in front of the entire dock was frozen by Duke's chilling aura.

Frost Nova?

No, this was far beyond a simple Frost Nova.

The icy barrier around Duke expanded endlessly. All the seawater that entered the freezing barrier was instantly frozen solid. At the same time, the swirling ice tornadoes within the barrier smoothed away all the ice spikes and ice cones above the horizon.

The sound of ice shards grinding together filled the air.

As Duke took each step forward, a larger and larger sheet of massive ice appeared in the sight of the 50,000 soldiers.

It was a colossal ice sheet, akin to an iceberg.

The ice sheet on this side of the dock formed a rectangular shape, with a width of at least 300 meters near the dock. As Duke continued to walk, the enormous ice sheet's area kept expanding.

From a distance, it looked like an incredibly massive ice ship.

Three-mast or five-mast ships were nothing compared to this behemoth of an ice ship.

Even the aircraft carriers from Duke's past life were insignificant in front of this gigantic ice vessel.