Maiev watched her loyal subordinates fall one after another, dying brutal deaths at the hands of Rhodes' strange summons. Her heart bled with every loss.
These were the elites she had hand-raised over countless years, the essential force maintaining order among the Night Elves. Now, they were being cut down while pursuing Illidan—and by a human who claimed to be an ally!
Despair and fury filled her soul.
She tried once more to rush Rhodes, but the Archangels intercepted her with ease. The sheer power of the Holy Light made the Shadow energy within her body feel sluggish and stagnant. Every time her Umbra Crescent clashed with the holy blades, she felt the searing burn of the Light and the crushing weight of their power.
Yet, for some reason, even though the two Archangels clearly had the strength to take her down together, they refused to end the fight. They merely entangled her, keeping her from attacking Rhodes or saving her subordinates. The situation was agonizingly humiliating.
"Enough! Stop! Rhodes! Make your people stop!" Maiev finally screamed, her voice carrying a tremor of despair she hadn't even noticed. "I command you to stop!"
"You tell me to stop and I just stop? That would make me look quite bad. Keep killing—leave none alive," Rhodes said with a cold snort.
His orders were executed without a second's hesitation. The Phoenix's flames grew more violent, instantly incinerating two Wardens who were trying to cover each other. Their piercing screams were cut short, leaving behind only two charred husks.
The Magic Element's psychic shockwave erupted again. A Warden clutched her head, let out a pained shriek, and collapsed, bleeding from her eyes and ears. A Gold Golem's heavy iron fist smashed down, crushing a struggling Warden into the dirt along with her armor.
"You... you dare..." Maiev's voice was hoarse with agony. "Murdering my sisters... the Night Elves will never let this pass! Tyrande and Malfurion will never forgive you!"
Every Warden was a sister to her, children she had watched grow. Seeing them slaughtered made her heart weep and her body tremble.
"Forgive? Afraid of Malfurion and Tyrande's blame? Do you think I care? Or better yet, do you think they actually care?" Rhodes' voice was dripping with mockery and undisguised malice.
"This is all your fault, you crazy Karen." Rhodes paced slowly, his gaze piercing the trapped Maiev like an icicle.
"In the beginning, I showed mercy. If you had just stopped and taken your people away, none of your precious subordinates would have died. But you! Your obsession chose to make me an enemy. You defied the clear orders of the demigod Cenarius. You pushed them to their deaths!"
Rhodes paused, savoring Maiev's distorted expression of agony (detectable even through her mask), and continued to cut at her psyche with words:
"I'll tell you the truth! Back at the Vault of the Wardens, I was the one who stopped Tyrande. Otherwise, do you think a single soul would have been left alive in that bunker? Every last guard would have been a corpse long ago! Tyrande's patience with you is gone, Maiev.
You and your blind followers are nothing but an eyesore to the 'important' people. Today, I'm just clearing out some unnecessary trouble! Malfurion and Tyrande won't blame me—they'll thank me for solving a nuisance."
"No! You're lying!!" Maiev shrieked in despair. Every word from Rhodes was like a poisoned dagger plunging through her final psychological defense. She tried desperately to break free from the Archangels, but the divine barrier was impenetrable. Her frantic lunges only resulted in holy fire leaving fresh burns on her skin.
The massacre continued. To protect Maiev, one Warden took a Diamond Golem's punch to the back; the blood she coughed up sprayed across Maiev before she went limp, her eyes turning dull. The last few Wardens stood back-to-back in a final stand, but they were quickly overwhelmed by fire, magic, and iron fists.
Finally, the last scream faded.
On the shattered beach, only burning flames, the stench of char, and the scattered bodies of the Wardens remained. The once-elite force was completely annihilated.
The Archangels ceased their attack, floating silently behind Rhodes. His army—Magic Elements, Phoenixes, and Golems—stood untouched, without a single casualty.
It had been a complete slaughter. Rhodes couldn't understand how, in the original timeline, Illidan was chased across the world by Maiev. These Wardens weren't that strong; if Illidan had been willing to kill, he could have wiped them out easily.
With the restriction gone, Maiev seemed to lose all her strength. She collapsed to her knees, her Umbra Crescent clattering onto the stones. Looking at the hellish scene and the lifeless faces of her sisters, her body began to shake violently.
She didn't cry; she only let out a stifled, beast-like whimpering. Everything was gone—her pride, her sisters, her army—destroyed in minutes by this human man.
Rhodes walked up to her, looking down at the broken Jailer.
"Do you feel it now? The price of defying me," Rhodes said coldly. "Take this despair and this lesson and crawl back to your forest. If there is a next time, Maiev Shadowsong, I won't mind the Night Elves having a new leader for the Wardens."
"Kill me! You bastard, kill me!" Maiev bit her lip until it bled, staring at him with madness. With her subordinates dead, she had no face to return with. The shame was etched into her bones.
Maiev knelt in the silent ruins, tasting a despair that reached her soul. Her world had collapsed.
Rhodes smiled inwardly. That's the effect I wanted. You wanted to be arrogant? You wanted to ignore warnings? Now you know.
"Oh? Now you're begging me? I won't grant you that wish. I won't kill you," Rhodes said, lifting Maiev's chin.
"I promise you," Maiev hissed, "if you don't kill me today, I will hunt you for the rest of my life until I kill you."
"Ooh, I'm so scared! In that case, you can be my prisoner for a bit." Rhodes signaled an Archangel, who promptly knocked Maiev unconscious with a swift strike.
"Rhodes, don't you think you went a bit too far? She's practically driven mad," Jaina said.
"This is how people learn. They have to pay for their actions. I want her to understand the meaning of despair, so that when she gets everything back, she'll cherish it," Rhodes explained. He had specifically ordered his summons to be brutal but keep the bodies intact.
"So you're going to resurrect them now? They might just try to kill you again," Jaina noted.
"Don't worry, it's only a hundred people. Once resurrected, they'll be in a weakened state. I'll notify Tyrande to come pick them up. Let the Wardens follow the real leaders for once in their lives," Rhodes said.
He gathered the bodies and cast Resurrection. A mass of green life energy erupted from his palm like a brilliant firework, raining down as soft, vibrant light onto every fallen Warden.
The miracle began. Charred wounds from Phoenix fire healed instantly. Shattered bones snapped back into place. Those whose souls had been dazed by magic fluttered their eyes open. Even the one burnt to a crisp saw her charred shell fall away to reveal fresh skin. Within seconds, the entire unit stood up, perfectly intact.
They checked their bodies in shock, as if the battle and their deaths had been a mere hallucination. If not for their tattered clothes, they wouldn't have believed it.
"Wardens," Rhodes announced, bathed in the holy glow of life magic, looking like an avatar of nature itself. "Under the orders of Cenarius, I command you to return to Kalimdor and report to Tyrande. I have restored your lives with life magic. If you defy me again, the next death will be permanent."