CHAPTER 690: FOOLS

Sylvanas stood, a living tempest, at the forefront of the host. Her long, light golden hair, a legend woven through a thousand years of war, streamed wildly. Before ten thousand elite elves, that golden cascade was no longer mere symbol; it was a sacred banner, its very threads beginning to deify, to embody the raw, unyielding spirit of their people.

Her eyes, blazing with an inner fire, held a resolve that shattered doubt, a confidence that defied the encroaching darkness. They were sharper, more piercing than when she last claimed the mantle of Ranger General. Her high, slender eyebrows, the mark of elven nobility, were drawn with an unbreakable heroism, stubbornly etched in defiance.

The specter of confusion, the stain of weakness, the shadow of hesitation that had once marred her gaze—born from the Silvermoon Council’s crushing hand a decade past—had been burned away. The deep, weary exhaustion that had once haunted the rangers’ memories of her was obliterated. Only an unrelenting, predatory focus remained.

She wore the ranger’s vestments, yet these were no common raiment. This was a second skin, forged in her image, bearing the unmistakable imprint of her savage will.

A dark green cloak, a living shadow, writhed and snapped in the biting, turbulent wind, mirroring the wild, untamed flow of her golden hair.

Two shoulder armors, grimly adorned with the jagged tusks of trolls hunted and slain in the cursed depths of Stranglethorn Vale, screamed of a feral, tribal power. They were a scarred monument to the high elves’ enduring hatred, a brutal testament to her decade-long, relentless slaughter of the troll menace, and the undisputed mark of the forest’s true sovereign.

Beneath the cloak, a bikini breastplate, its surface alive with crackling lightning runes, offered stark glimpses of delicate collarbones and a dangerously honed, lethal waist.

Her lower body was sheathed in dark green breeches, crafted for the deepest concealment, clearly imbued with potent magic. A closer inspection would reveal the faint, restless shimmer of raw electrical current that clung to their very weave.

Ranger General, no—after Kael’thas’s craven surrender, and the brutal suppression of Lor’themar and Halduron, the two generals she herself had appointed—Sylvanas stood as the last, desperate, burning ember of hope for these ten thousand elves.

She stood unyielding, a living standard against the encroaching night!

Though every elf witnessed her relentless charge at the vanguard, and saw others caked in the dust of battle, their bodies marred by wounds, her blade, her longbow, her armor, her every accessory remained pristine, unsullied. Even her tall ranger boots bore no trace of the battlefield’s grime. She was a commander of impossible perfection, maintaining an appearance that was the very embodiment of the high elves’ most fervent desires.

Ordinarily, even a simple passage through the burning streets would leave one stained by the city’s ashes. To maintain such a heroic, unblemished posture after carving a path through more than a thousand undead abominations, both mighty and weak, was a feat of terrifying power.

This was not merely the result of the howling wind and crackling thunder that perpetually wreathed her; it was the absolute, devastating culmination of her fighting mastery.

Suddenly, a thunderous wave of admiration erupted from the elves, a primal roar of awe.

A thousand years of brutal, intermittent warfare against the trolls on the fringes of Eversong Woods, followed by the crucible of the Second Dark Gate War—the most cataclysmic conflict in the Eastern Kingdoms’ scarred history—had forged her. The once talented, yet untempered, female ranger was no longer merely seeking the echoes of history; she was seizing its reins, her ascent to queenhood swift and terrifying.

A ranger hero and a forgotten queen—two distinct, disparate figures—now collided, merged, their destinies interwoven, becoming a single, unstoppable force that transcended the boundaries of time.

Sun King Anasterian, a figure of fading power at the base of the royal court’s steps, and Ranger General Sylvanas, a beacon of defiant fury, high above, framed within the court’s imposing gate.

A king, once unquestioned, absolute!

An exile, once cast out, abandoned by his own dominion!

Yet their gazes slammed together across the expanse of the stairs, a silent, electric clash in the charged air.

Anasterian ignored Kael’thas, who knelt trembling on the steps, his head bowed in pathetic submission. The Sun King’s clouded eyes fixed on the rebel, the one who had shattered his carefully laid plans of forced capitulation.

The Sun King’s voice, a hissing sneer of pure venom and contempt, cut through the air: "You oppose? What right have you to oppose? You, who clawed for courage, who strained your last breath against me, yet it could not prevent the demise of yourself and your pathetic followers. So what meaning does your opposition hold?"

Sylvanas’s head snapped back, her fearless, beautiful face flickering with a dangerous, vibrant life. "I object! Because I am a ranger, and I possess the basic decency to appreciate the beauty of life. I am not like you, a festering, rotten brain, who sees life as mere chattel to be trampled and discarded at will!"

The Sun King’s sneer deepened, a rictus of disdain. "Gratitude for life? What a tedious, pointless sentiment! Every living thing is chained by the terror of death. Since you cling to this fear, then seek to conquer death itself. My idiotic subjects! You wail about death’s horror, yet you shrink from that ultimate step. Then abandon your reason and let me, your king, decide everything!"

Sylvanas’s retort was a blade of pure sarcasm, honed to a lethal edge: "Let you decide? Do you, a twisted, grotesque mockery, truly believe you are qualified to condemn us to your hideous form? Enough, Anasterian! Your life is forfeit; cease this shameless, crawling existence! And do not drag more souls into the abyss of your damnation, for you and your followers are beyond salvation!"

The Sun King’s face contorted, consumed by a raw, seething rage at Sylvanas’s blazing, defiant declaration.

"You..."

Sylvanas’s gaze flickered to Kael’thas, still trembling, still unable to meet her eyes. A fleeting, almost imperceptible sigh escaped her lips. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, she raised the longbow in her hand. The taut string sang a deadly prelude as she drew the bow, pulling the arrow back until its razor-sharp tip pointed directly at the almighty Sun King, at the head that was once noble, now gray, withered, and utterly repugnant.

"Anasterian, you possess the right to surrender your own wretched life, but you have no right to trample the life and soul of every elf who embraces existence. By your words alone, I, Sylvanas Windrunner, hereby declare that I do not recognize Sunstrider as my king! Therefore, my final counsel to you is this: Go to hell! UNDEAD!"

Every word struck like a hammer blow, sonorous and powerful.

Every syllable seeped into the very marrow of their souls.

Every elf, in that searing moment, felt an unbearably intense surge of exhilaration erupt from the deepest chambers of their being, coursing through every vein, igniting every cell in their body.

The roar, no longer containable, finally shattered the silence, a thunderclap that shook the heavens—

Thousands upon thousands of elves screamed as one: "GO TO HELL! DIRTY UNDEAD!"

The Sun King’s breath escaped in a sudden, soft sigh: "Fools are fools... It is clear that only by renouncing life can one truly ’live’ with ease."

The next moment, a flash of searing light and crackling shadow, borne on the wings of thunder, slammed into his vision, less than an inch from his pupils.