The sky filled with writhing, snarling demons, all struggling in vain to return to the ground. Below them, gaping fighters stared with weapons lowered as the threat to their land, to their world, was simply torn away before their very eyes. Even the corpses of those demons long slain joined the ones above, adding to the spectacle.

“ ’Tis a miracle!” someone shouted from behind Jarod. He glanced over his shoulder to discover that several of those who had earlier been tossed back by Archimonde had begun to return. Many continued to watch the sky, but a number of others eyed Jarod as if he alone was responsible for the stunning turn of events.

The ranks of the demons were stripped from Kalimdor line after line until soon a barren wasteland spread out before the defenders. Not one demon remained. In fact, not even one piece of any demon remained.

More than a few night elves dropped to their knees in relief. However, despite what had happened, Jarod had the unsettling feeling that the struggle was not quite at an end. It could not be so easy…

“On your feet, all of you!” he roared. With his good hand, he seized a dumbfounded herald and commanded, “Sound the horns! I want order in the host again! We have to be prepared to move!”

A priestess of Elune came to his side and inspected his arm. As she did, Jarod continued to collect his thoughts.

“Are we giving chase?” a noble called, looking too eager for Jarod’s taste.

“No!” the commander snapped back, unmindful of the difference in caste. “We wait for word from the mage Krasus or one of those with him! Only then do we move… and whether it’s to advance on Zin-Azshari or flee for our lives, we’ll need to be ready to do it as fast this wind!”

As they obeyed, Jarod, allowing himself just enough time for the priestess’s ministrations, stared once more in the direction the demons had flown, the direction of the capital and the Well.

It could not end this simply, no…

Yet, throughout Kalimdor, the Burning Legion was cast from the ground and tossed helplessly toward the Well of Eternity. Their struggles were as nothing against the wind and as Krasus and the rest watched, they massed over the waters like a gigantic swarm of bees before dropping into the maelstrom.

“Is that it? Is it over?” shouted Rhonin.

“It may be… and it may be not!” To Alexstrasza, Krasus called, “To Malfurion!”

She nodded, banking in the direction of the druid and Ysera. Rhonin and the red male followed close behind.

Malfurion and his mount hovered over the whirlpool, the night elf awash in the Demon Soul’s golden glow. His normally-dark skin looked almost as pale as Krasus’s. He glanced at the cowled mage in anxiousness.

“He’s still trying to come through!” The druid’s face had aged. Lines traced over it and his eyes had sunken in a little. “I don’t know if my spell can hold him!”

Krasus gazed down, his heightened senses enabling him to see deep into the Well.

Deep into the portal…

And so it was that he beheld Sargeras, lord of the Legion.

Molten armor clad the titan from neck to foot, its black fury so great that it burned the mage’s eyes just to look. Fighting the pain, Krasus dared stare into the face of evil, a monstrous distortion of perfection. Once, there had been a handsome, even beautiful being — a being of the race that Krasus knew had created his world. Now, however, the beauty was tainted. The flesh was that of death and the eyes the fiery emptiness of utter chaos. Sargeras’s teeth were fangs. Behind him whipped a long, thick tail with jagged scales jutting out at the tip. His hands ended in wicked, curved talons and in one of those hands, he wielded a monstrous sword cracked midway but with a jagged edge still capable of much mayhem.

Krasus choked, horrified at what he discovered next. On the end of that monstrous weapon, a tiny, green body lay impaled.

Brox.

In all the excitement, the mage had forgotten all about the orc. Now, though, Krasus understood why his party had gained precious — very precious — seconds. The orc had sacrificed himself to delay the Legion.

Sargeras stood at the gateway. Despite the incredible forces driving his horde back into his realm, the lord of the Legion pressed forward. Slowly, surely, he reached the portal…

But as Sargeras neared, Krasus noted a stunning thing. The demon lord was injured, albeit minutely. A small slash mark decorated his right leg, a mark that Krasus’s keen eyes recognized as made by an ax.

Brox’s ax. Impossible as it seemed, the enchanted weapon had scratched Sargeras. Not enough to cause him any real harm, of course, but that a wound existed at all opened up a unique possibility.

“Rhonin! Alexstrasza! We must act as one! Malfurion! Be prepared! You will have your chance to destroy the portal, but only barely!”

The others followed his lead. Krasus felt his queen and his former protege allow him to guide their power. The red male added his strength as well, as did Ysera. It left Malfurion open to attack, but if this final effort failed, none of them could hope to survive.

Eyes alight with power, Krasus focused the party’s combined magic at the gateway. The mage trusted to the demon lord’s intense concentration for the success of the spellcasters’ desperate venture.

In comparison to Sargeras, both Archimonde and Mannoroth were as fleas. The power of a hundred dragons would have been as nothing to him. Had Krasus sought to strike Sargeras directly, either in the chest or head, the results would have been laughable, at least to the demon lord. That Brox had managed his miraculous attack at all said much for the power imbued in the weapon by the druid and his shan’do.

No, instead, the mage poured all that he was given by the others at the tiny, insignificant wound Brox’s ax — a piece of Kalimdor’s magic itself — had managed.

And then it happened. Krasus sensed Sargeras’s concentration weaken just for a moment. Not from pain — that would have been too much hope for — but rather, simply from startlement.

Which was what Krasus wanted. “Now, Malfurion!”

Clutching the Demon Soul tight, Malfurion assailed the portal.

Krasus had gambled that the magically-wrought wound would be just sensitive enough to gain the demon lord’s momentary attention if it was struck again. All their assembled might had done had been to create a slight irritation, one upon which Sargeras had instinctively focused instead of the gateway.

The mouth of the maelstrom quivered, then lost cohesion. An explosion of energy erupted from the depths of the whirlpool.

The portal started to collapse.

One side after another, the fiery border surrounding it fell in upon itself. Sargeras attempted to reconstruct it, but by then, it had moved beyond even his power to do so. One precious second had stolen the demon lord’s victory.

And then a thing happened that Krasus could never have dreamed possible. Sargeras, refusing to believe his defeat, stepped within the crumbling portal itself, trying both to rebuild it and cross through. His desire to do so proved his undoing. As the portal imploded, the demon lord found himself trapped. He could not flee, could not pull back. Dropping his sword, the titan even battered against the gateway with his fists, but to no avail. The corridor between realms shrank rapidly, at last crushing in on him. Sargeras roared and his voice echoed in the heads of all.

I will not be denied! I will not!

But the gateway continued to condense and Sargeras seemed to condense with it. He struggled to keep the way open, the interior of the gate aflame from his titanic efforts.

And then, with the demon lord still shouting his rage and beating at the walls… the portal ceased to be.

Sargeras ceased to be.

“It’s done!” gasped Malfurion. “It’s — ”