World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1 Read Online Free PDF Page B

soon found a solution. He set out to imprison the elementals, much as the greatSargeras had done to demons. Ra first called on the aid of the gifted titan-forged sorceressHelya. They worked in concert to craft four interlinked domains within a pocket dimension known as theElemental Plane. Ra and Helya then banished the elemental lords and nearly all of their servants to this enchanted prison realm.
    Ragnaros and the fire elementals were exiled to a smoldering corner of the Elemental Plane known as theFirelands. Therazane and the earth elementals were locked within the crystalline caverns ofDeepholm. Al’Akir and the air elementals were imprisoned among the cloudy spires of theSkywall. Lastly, Neptulon and the water elementals were sucked into the fathomless depths of theAbyssal Maw. Only a few elementals would remain on the surface of Azeroth. With their leaders gone, these beings scattered and abandoned the war.
    Having contained the elementals, the keepers turned their attention to the Black Empire’s aqiri legions. Many of the insectoids dwelled in vast catacombs that snaked beneath the surface of the devastated world. Archaedas bent the stones and soil to his will, collapsing the aqiri burrows and driving the creatures aboveground. Upon emerging from their lairs, the insectoids found themselves surrounded by the titan-forged.
    The battles between the titan-forged and the aqir proved unexpectedly vicious. In time, the keepers destroyed most of the aqiri race. Small pockets of the insectoids, those that had tunneled deep underground, escaped the keepers’ wrath. Yet they were too weakened to mount a counterattack.

THE TITAN-FORGED BATTLE THE ELEMENTAL LORDS

MAP OF AZEROTH UNDER THE BLACK EMPIRE’S CONTROL

T he victories over theaqir and the elementals heartened the keepers, but they knew that their greatest battles were still to come. As one, they turned their righteous gaze on the heart of the Black Empire: the sprawling temple city built around the Old GodY’Shaarj. By toppling the most powerfuln’raqi bastion on Azeroth, the keepers believed they could crush their enemies in one swift stroke.
    The keepers and their allies waded through one swarm of n’raqi after another as they battled their way toward the mountainous form of Y’Shaarj. The broken and mangled bodies oftitan-forged and n’raqi alike riddled the landscape by the time the invaders breached the city and assaulted the Old God itself.
    Y’Shaarj was more powerful than the keepers had expected. It poisoned the minds of the titan-forged, drawing out their fears and darkening their thoughts.
    ThePantheon grew concerned that the Old God would overwhelm their servants. Despite the risk of harming the world, they decided to take direct action.Aman’Thul himself reached down through Azeroth’s stormy skies and took hold of Y’Shaarj’s writhing body. With a heave of his mighty arm, he tore the Old God from the crust of the world. In that moment, Y’Shaarj’s gargantuan bulk was ripped apart. The immensity of the Old God’s death rattle shattered mountaintops and obliterated hundreds of titan-forged where they stood.
    Y’Shaarj was dead, but its tendrils had bored more deeply through Azeroth than Aman’Thul had ever imagined. In excising the Old God from the world, he had inadvertently ripped an eternal wound in Azeroth’s surface. Volatile arcane energies—the lifeblood of the nascent titan—erupted from the scar and roiled out across the world.
    Horrified by this turn of events, the Pantheon realized they could not risk killing the otherOld Gods in such a manner. The malignant creatures had embedded themselves so deep into the world that tearing them out would destroy Azeroth itself.
    The Pantheon knew that the only course of action was to imprison the Old Gods where they lay and contain their evil forever. It would be a difficult task, but it would be possible with the aid of the keepers. At the Pantheon’s behest, the titan-forged devised