Draenor greeted the Alliance Expedition not as a world, but as a wound.
The moment Turalyon stepped through the Dark Portal, the air itself felt wrong, thin, acrid, heavy with ash and lingering fel corruption.
The sky above Hellfire Peninsula burned in shades of crimson and sickly green, torn by distant lightning that never brought rain. The land was cracked and broken, as though the world had been struck again and again by a god's hammer.
Behind him emerged the rest of the expedition. Alleria Windrunner, her sharp gaze already scanning the horizon, hand resting near her bow. Khadgar, older now, staff in hand, the weight of past failures and hard-earned wisdom etched deep into his features. Kurdran Wildhammer, astride his gryphon, circling overhead with a low, wary growl in his throat.
And thousands more; soldiers, paladins, mages, engineers, and veterans of two wars, marching into enemy territory with grim resolve.
"This ends here," Turalyon said quietly, his voice steady despite the devastation before them. "No more portals. No more invasions."
Khadgar nodded. "If Ner'zhul is allowed to finish his work… Azeroth won't survive another war."
—
The first months were brutal.
Ner'zhul's clans did not meet the Alliance in open battle, not at first. Instead, they harried them endlessly. Ambushes erupted from the jagged ravines of Hellfire Peninsula. Fel-infused warbands struck supply lines, vanished into the wastes, then returned at dawn with renewed ferocity.
Turalyon adapted quickly.
He divided the forces into mobile spearheads, combining heavy infantry with paladin detachments and mage support. Each clash was met with disciplined resistance. Each ambush was answered with swift retaliation.
Alleria became the eyes of the expedition.
Her rangers moved like ghosts through the broken terrain, eliminating scouts before they could report back. Orcish warbands learned to fear the whisper of arrows cutting through the crimson haze.
Kurdran ruled the skies.
Gryphon riders clashed with wyverns in violent aerial battles, feathers and scales raining down over the battlefield. Kurdran himself seemed tireless, laughing even as he hurled his hammer into enemy ranks from above.
Khadgar, meanwhile, waged a quieter war.
Arcane wards sprang up around encampments. Portals shifted troops with terrifying speed. Enemy rituals were disrupted before completion as Khadgar unraveled spellwork woven by the Shadowmoon clan.
Despite this, progress was slow.
For every orc slain, another seemed to rise from the wasteland.
"This world is bleeding us," Kurdran growled one evening, wiping soot from his beard. "And it ain't even tryin' to hide it."
"It's not the world," Khadgar replied grimly. "It's Ner'zhul."
—
Understanding that retreat was not an option, the Alliance entrenched themselves around the Dark Portal.
Massive stoneworks rose from the scorched ground. Barricades reinforced with runic wards and siege engines turned the Portal into a fortress rather than a liability. This bastion became both shield and anchor, ensuring no sudden counter-invasion could catch Azeroth unaware.
It was here that the expedition laid the foundations of what would become Honor Hold.
Stone by stone, amid constant harassment, the fortress rose. Paladins consecrated its halls. Mages wove protective enchantments into its walls. Soldiers bled to defend every inch of ground it occupied.
Honor Hold stood not merely as a base but as a declaration.
The Alliance had come to Draenor to finish this war.
—
With their foothold secured, Turalyon ordered the expedition to strike outward.
Their first major objective was Zeth'kur, the Orcish shipyards that fed Ner'zhul's growing ambitions. From there, the Horde planned to expand their reach across Draenor's shattered seas and perhaps beyond.
The assault was swift and merciless.
Alleria's rangers sabotaged watchtowers under cover of night. Kurdran's gryphons struck from above, setting drydocks ablaze. Khadgar unleashed arcane firestorms that collapsed scaffolding and shattered warships before they could launch.
Turalyon led the ground assault personally, hammer blazing with holy light as he cut through defending warbands.
The shipyards burned for three days.
When the smoke finally cleared, Zeth'kur was nothing more than twisted wreckage sinking into poisoned waters.
Ner'zhul had lost his fleet.
—
Victory, however, did not bring comfort.
Supply shipments from Azeroth became erratic. At times, reinforcements arrived in abundance; fresh troops, food, weapons. At other times, weeks passed with nothing.
"The Portal's unstable," Khadgar said, frustration evident. "Control on the Azeroth side keeps shifting. Politics, fear, exhaustion… they're arguing while we bleed."
Alleria clenched her jaw. "We knew this wouldn't be easy."
Turalyon stared at the Dark Portal, its green energies pulsing erratically.
"Then we endure," he said. "Even if Azeroth forgets us… we will not fail."
The Sons of Lothar pressed on, isolated, surrounded, and deep in enemy territory.
Unbeknownst to them, deeper within Draenor, Ner'zhul watched and waited, his plans nearing completion.
And across worlds, threads of fate tightened—drawing dragons, mages, heroes, and monsters ever closer to the breaking point of reality itself.
The march on Hellfire Citadel began beneath a sky choked with smoke and embers.
Rising from the blasted plains like a jagged wound in the world, the citadel loomed iron spikes driven into stone, walls blackened by fel fire, banners of the Shattered Hand snapping violently in the hot wind. This was no mere fortress. It was the beating heart of the remaining Horde presence on Draenor, a symbol of defiance and brutality shaped in Kargath Bladefist's own image.
Turalyon studied the structure in silence, gauntleted hands resting on the pommel of his hammer.
"This is it," he said at last. "Break this, and Ner'zhul's war machine bleeds out."
"All signs point to him being here," Khadgar replied, eyes glowing faintly as he probed the citadel's defenses with arcane senses. "Heavy fel wards. Crude, but powerful. Dentarg's work, no doubt."
Alleria's voice was calm, sharp as a drawn arrow. "Then we strike fast. Before they realize we're not just another raid."
—
The assault was brutal and decisive.
Alliance siege engines roared, hurling enchanted stone and explosive payloads into the outer walls. Gryphon riders screamed down from the sky, strafing ramparts while mages unleashed cascading waves of frost and fire to clear battlements.
Inside, the Shattered Hand clan fought like cornered beasts.
Orcs with self-mutilated limbs, blades grafted where hands once were, charged screaming into Alliance lines. Their savagery was terrifying, but no longer disciplined. These were remnants, fueled by desperation rather than strategy.
Kargath Bladefist himself led the counterattack.
He burst from the inner gate like a living weapon, chain-blade spinning, cutting down soldiers with terrifying speed. His roar echoed through the citadel as he carved a path straight toward Turalyon's command unit.
Paladins met him head-on.
Holy light clashed with fel rage as Kargath smashed aside shields and armor alike. For a moment, it seemed as though the old warlord might break through sheer force of will.
But this was no longer the Second War.
Alliance coordination held. Rangers pinned his movements. Mages froze the ground beneath his feet. When the hammer of Turalyon finally came crashing down, it drove Kargath to one knee.
Snarling, bleeding, Kargath laughed.
"This world will burn whether you kill me or not!"
With a final, defiant roar, he detonated a fel charge, collapsing part of the corridor and vanishing into the smoke with a handful of surviving orcs.He had escaped but his citadel had not.
Deep within the citadel's inner sanctum, Dentarg, Ner'zhul's most loyal lieutenant, attempted to complete a ritual meant to reinforce the Portal's connection.
Khadgar arrived in a storm of arcane energy.
Dentarg turned, eyes blazing with fel corruption, staff crackling as he hurled shadow and fire at the archmage. The chamber shook as spells collided, fel bolts tearing into stone, arcane barriers flaring bright gold in response.
"You are too late, human!" Dentarg hissed. "The portals will open! The Horde will escape this dying world!"
Khadgar's voice was cold, resolute. "No. Not this time."
A final incantation tore the magic from Dentarg's grasp. His staff shattered. His body, already hollowed by fel energy, collapsed into ash under a searing arcane blast.
With Dentarg's death, the last organized defense of Hellfire Citadel crumbled. The fortress fell.
Despite the overwhelming success, minimal Alliance casualties, the Horde's main stronghold was destroyed, unease settled quickly.
Ner'zhul was not there.
Khadgar searched Dentarg's remains, unraveling the residual magic left behind. His expression darkened with every revelation.
"He was never meant to hold this place," Khadgar said quietly. "Hellfire Citadel was a distraction. Ner'zhul is already moving."
From fragments of spellwork and intercepted plans, Khadgar pieced together the truth.
Ner'zhul intended to use the stolen artifacts—the Book of Medivh, the Eye of Dalaran, and the Skull of Gul'dan—to tear open multiple portals across Draenor and beyond. Not just an escape.
An exodus.
A scattering of the Horde across countless worlds.
"Unchecked," Khadgar warned, "he could doom entire realities."
As Khadgar continued his examination, another revelation surfaced, one tied not just to Draenor, but to Azeroth itself.
The Skull of Gul'dan.
A nexus of fel power. A key artifact in Medivh's original corruption.
"If we recover both the Skull and the Book," Khadgar said, voice heavy with implication, "it may be possible to destroy the Dark Portal entirely. Permanently."
Silence followed.
Then Turalyon nodded. "Then we split our forces."
The decision was swift, but heavy.
Danath Trollbane and Kurdran Wildhammer would pursue Ner'zhul, who still carried the Book of Medivh and was believed to be heading toward the Black Temple.
Khadgar, Turalyon, and Alleria would hunt Deathwing, who possessed the Skull of Gul'dan and had been sighted moving deeper into Draenor.
Alleria met Turalyon's gaze, understanding the danger without needing it spoken.
"Deathwing won't give that artifact up easily."
Khadgar's eyes hardened. "He won't have a choice."
The Alliance Expedition divided, each group chasing a different thread of a plan that threatened all existence.
Unbeknownst to them, Deathwing had already enacted his own designs.
Believing Draenor to be a temporary refuge, a world already dying and thus beneath the notice of greater cosmic forces, the Aspect of Death secreted away a clutch of black dragon eggs deep within the planet's fractured mountains.
But Draenor was not empty.
The gronn, ancient titanic beings of raw strength and primal fury, took exception to dragons claiming dominion over their territory. When Deathwing's brood descended, the land itself seemed to rise in defiance.
Mountains shook as gronn clashed with black dragons.
Stone fists shattered scales. Shadowflame scorched flesh. Entire valleys were reduced to ruin as titans of earth and fire waged war.
Deathwing roared in fury, his plans unraveling even as he clutched the Skull of Gul'dan close. Draenor, already dying, screamed beneath the weight of gods and monsters.
And across the shattered world, fate continued to tighten, drawing Leylin, dragons, heroes, and warlocks ever closer to a convergence that would decide not just the fate of Draenor…
…but the survival of worlds beyond.