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(A/N: Chapter 118 will soon be on Patreon!)
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The Phoenix avatar, after releasing the psychic shockwave, immediately turned its attention to the Chaos Gods and attacked them without hesitation.
A massive sphere of cosmic fire surrounded it before it unleashed itself as an enormous expanding shockwave of cosmic flames.
The four gods, sensing the danger within the flames, quickly manipulated the tides of the Warp while using their own domains to defend themselves.
Khorne unleashed a slash of corrupted crimson Warp energy imbued with the concept of slaughter.
Tzeentch attempted to displace the surrounding space-time.
Slaanesh tried to corrupt the raw passion of life contained within the flames and absorb it, while Nurgle sought to weaken them through his domain of decay.
Only for the cosmic fire to tear effortlessly through every attempt at defense and strike them directly.
For the first time in eons, the Chaos Gods felt excruciating pain as the flames burned them down to their very essence.
Even Slaanesh, who could either turn pain into pleasure or merge the two concepts into one, found they couldn't!?
It was as though the flames had pierced straight through their very essence to inflict agony itself.
But the Phoenix wasn't finished.
With another surge of power, four massive rifts were forcibly torn open into each of the Chaos Gods' realms.
The Phoenix seemed to regard them with nothing but contempt as a gargantuan tsunami of cosmic fire was summoned and hurled directly into the realms of Slaanesh, Khorne, and Tzeentch.
The immense tidal wave of cosmic flames poured relentlessly into their domains as the fires spread in every direction, engulfing and destroying everything in their path—whether it was the landscape, daemons, or even the very air of the realms themselves.
Any attempt to extinguish, weaken, or disperse the flames only seemed to make them even more voracious and violent.
Daemons screamed in terror and agony as they were consumed by the fire until their essence was broken down to the very basic building blocks of creation.
While the land itself buckled beneath the inferno as it was slowly being undone.
A Chaos God's realm was not merely a place where the god resided; it was a literal extension of the god's consciousness, formed from the very same psychic and emotional energy that comprised their own existence.
Any damage inflicted upon those realms was reflected directly upon their creators.
As Khorne, Tzeentch, and Slaanesh watched their domains burn, another fresh wave of unbearable pain coursed through them.
Except for Nurgle.
The Phoenix possessed a natural revulsion toward anything that embodied stagnation, the corruption of natural evolution, and absolute death.
The other three were already guilty of encouraging such things to varying degrees, but Nurgle...
Oh, he was going to receive special treatment!
Not only did he literally embody decay and stagnation, but Alastor himself harbored a special hatred toward him for the torment he'd endured under his "loving" care.
Not to mention Isha's imprisonment and everything Nurgle had subjected her to. Even more so now that she had become one of Alastor's closest companions and dearest friends during their captivity within the Garden.
Instead of sending a similar wave of flames into Nurgle's realm, the Phoenix entered it personally.
The colossal avatar immediately began raining down gigantic fireballs—each like a miniature star—across different sections of the Garden. Every impact erupted into an explosion that spread the same unstoppable cosmic flames.
Nurgle felt every ounce of pain as his realm buckled beneath the devastation.
"W-Wait... why are you doing this!? Have I not been kind—?!"
"I WILL DESTROY YOU!"
Alastor, from within the Phoenix avatar, didn't allow him to finish. His voice thundered across the Garden, perfectly interwoven with the Phoenix's own.
It also made one thing abundantly clear.
Although Alastor was possessed by the Phoenix, his will was not being dominated. Their minds and emotions existed in complete symbiosis.
The Phoenix avatar instantly closed the distance and began battering the Grandfather with a relentless barrage of attacks while Nurgle desperately fought back.
Though calling it a fight was a bit of a stretch.
The Phoenix's overwhelming cosmic flames effortlessly tore through Nurgle's attacks while continuously wounding him and forcing the Chaos God onto the defensive.
The avatar swept one of its wings.
The very fabric of space along its path was torn apart as the attack carved through Nurgle's diseased flesh, flesh carrying untold numbers of pathogens and plagues, all of which were ruthlessly consumed by the cosmic fire.
Alastor paid no heed to Nurgle's screams.
A massive sphere of flame formed before the Phoenix avatar's beak before erupting forward as a colossal beam of blazing psychic energy.
The instant the beam struck, it exploded into an apocalyptic dome of burning destruction fueled by the most violent, passionate, and indomitable aspects of life itself.
Swamps, plague forests, uncountable maggots and flies, and legions of Nurgle's daemons were eradicated by the raging inferno without hesitation or mercy.
Nurgle himself was hurled backward despite his titanic size, his bloated body covered in horrific burns.
The flames also struck the Black Manse, eroding and destroying every defense surrounding it while the accompanying shockwave blasted apart most of the structure.
Isha had felt the sudden upheaval sweeping through the Warp from within her black, thorn-covered, barbed cage, wondering what in the name of the Old Ones was happening.
Then she felt the realm itself shake violently several times, followed by the agonized screams of daemons and the presence of a fire unlike anything she had ever sensed before.
When the immense shockwave tore apart most of the Black Manse—her cage, however, remained stubbornly intact, much to her frustration—she finally gained a clear view of the devastation unfolding outside.
She was stunned when she realized that the flames originated from the domain of Life—a domain with which she herself was intimately familiar with due to being a Goddess of life.
Yet despite the tens of millions of years she'd lived, she had never imagined that the domain of Life possessed such an overwhelmingly destructive aspect, much less one of such terrifying intensity.
But even that paled in comparison to the shock she felt when her eyes finally beheld the titanic, blazing form of the Phoenix.
From within that majestic being, she felt the immense, violent, passionate, and unyielding force of life in its most primal form.
Yet at the very same time, she also sensed the calm, gentle, nurturing aspects of life.
Though they represented opposing facets of existence, both coexisted in perfect harmony within this singular being.
For one fleeting moment, she believed Asuryan himself had returned before immediately discarding the thought.
She'd personally witnessed Asuryan become the first to be devoured by Slaanesh.
More importantly, even at the height of his power, Asuryan had never displayed such primal mastery over the domain of Life, much less wielded power that utterly dwarfed even what the Old Ones had once been capable of.
But the moment her senses probed deeper, she froze.
She felt her blessing deep within the Phoenix.
Which should have been impossible!
The only person upon whom she had ever bestowed that particular blessing recently was—
"Alastor!?"
Her eyes widened in utter shock and bewilderment as she realized that the majestic being before her was none other than the close companion and dear friend she had come to cherish during their shared captivity.
Alastor within the Phoenix avatar immediately turned his head toward her direction hearing his name being called.
To Isha's growing concern, she noticed that portions of the Phoenix's flaming body had shifted into a deep, violent crimson that sharply contrasted with the rest of its golden-orange flames.
Those crimson flames radiated an aura of malice, hatred, wrath, and resentment.
However, the moment Alastor, in his Phoenix state, saw Isha's worried and confused expression, he felt his raging emotions begin to settle.
The deep crimson flames slowly faded, returning to their original golden-orange brilliance.
No longer paying any attention to Nurgle, the Phoenix avatar immediately flew into the ruined Black Manse and, with a single surge of psychic power, shattered the black, barbed cage imprisoning Isha.
She was surprised, yet undeniably overjoyed.
Only to let out a startled yelp as her body was gently lifted by the Phoenix's psionic power and drawn into its flaming form.
The flames did not harm her.
On the contrary, they acted as the perfect tonic for a Goddess of Life.
She could feel her divine strength visibly returning, while the flames themselves felt like the warmest embrace imaginable.
After rescuing Isha and sensing that Alastor was approaching complete exhaustion from everything that had transpired, the Phoenix assumed full control.
She tore through the dimensional boundaries of Nurgle's realm and emerged back into the Warp before once again turning her attention toward the Realms of Chaos.
The Chaos Gods, meanwhile, had already reached several conclusions.
Whatever this thing was, its power was extraordinarily effective against entities of their nature.
It possessed overwhelming power, was completely immune to corruption, and seemed to harbor an instinctual disgust for their very existence.
After witnessing the devastation it had already wrought, they immediately decided to cut their losses.
Each of the Chaos Gods severed the portions of their realms that had been consumed by the cosmic flames, sacrificing both those fragments of their domains and every daemon trapped within them.
The abandoned daemons could only watch in despair as they were all but abandoned by their masters as the flames of the inferno consumed them,
Without the slightest hesitation, the Ruinous Powers retreated deeper into the Warp, dragging with them their realms as quickly as they could.
Surprisingly, the Phoenix did not pursue.
She had already accomplished what she had come to do.
Only one final task remained—
But suddenly, the Phoenix paused.
As she turned, she sensed a remarkably powerful psychic projection concealed with exceptional skill amidst the tides of the Warp.
She found herself genuinely impressed.
Despite this only being her second visit to this reality, she had already noticed that, compared to her own multiverse, the quality of the psychics here was honestly what humans from her dimension would call a complete dumpster fire.
Most of the psychics she'd sensed were unstable, insane, delusional, or suffering from one affliction or another.
Even those who possessed respectable levels of psychic power by mortal standards failed to impress her.
Power meant little when they lacked the discipline to control it safely, much less cultivate it to its fullest potential.
(A/N: Remember, this is the Phoenix Force. Her standards are ridiculously high.)
This human, however, was different.
He stood head and shoulders above the rest.
Not only did he possess immense psychic power, but she could also sense extraordinary mastery over both his soul and his psychic abilities.
In that regard, he reminded her somewhat of her favorite female host, Jean Grey, as well as several other exceptional psychics, such as the blonde-haired human female, Emma Frost.
The Phoenix unleashed her psychic might.
In an instant, it enveloped the surrounding region of the Warp, sealing off every possible avenue of escape before closing in upon the hidden psychic projection.
The Emperor had already been in an exceedingly rare state of shock after secretly witnessing everything that had transpired.
His eyes widened further as he felt an unimaginably powerful psychic force descending upon him.
He immediately mobilized the full extent of his psychic might, attempting to resist and escape.
The Phoenix was mildly surprised.
This "mortal" had actually managed to resist her psychic power.
But even in her current, lesser state, she was not an existence that any mere mortal could contend with for long.
With nothing more than a thought, her psychic power intensified dramatically.
The Emperor's psychic resistance was torn apart like tissue paper before his astral body was bound in multiple layers of psychic restraints and effortlessly drawn before her.
The Emperor called upon every ounce of his immense psychic strength.
The restraints didn't budge even an inch!
Ordinarily, he remained calm even when facing maddened gods.
Yet the being before him was unlike anything he'd ever witnessed.
Not only was the sheer magnitude of her power beyond comprehension, but the very nature of that power was completely unknown to him.
The Phoenix looked down at the human soul suspended within her grasp with an expression that could only be described as curious.
"Ah... now I remember."
"This is my Chosen's sire as well."
Truthfully, she cared very little for him, Terra, or anything else within this reality during her first visit.
At the time, her sole focus had been guiding her Chosen's genesis pod toward the world recommended by her temporary "partner" within this universe.
But since she'd finally met him, she might as well perform a few necessary checks.
The Phoenix connected her mind to the Emperor's through her cosmic telepathy and, with almost insulting ease, bypassed his mental shields and psychic defenses.
She examined the entirety of his memories—his deeds, his plans, his knowledge—all thirty-eight thousand years of it in what amounted to no more than two seconds.
The Emperor couldn't remember ever feeling this powerless or overwhelmed.
For all his immense power and countless safeguards, they proved utterly irrelevant before the cosmic being standing before him.
If only he knew.
Even a god of psychic power would mean nothing before the being who served as the nexus of all psionic and psychic power across an entire multiverse.
After sorting through everything she had seen, the Phoenix found herself somewhat conflicted.
On one hand, she found the man's unwavering devotion to his race, his pursuit of progress and reason, and the immense emotional depth hidden beneath his iron self-control genuinely appealing.
As for the skeletons she had uncovered within his memories...
She simply didn't care.
Across her countless eons of existence, beings who were completely pure were extraordinarily rare—even among the cosmic hierarchy itself.
Ok maybe that wasn't the best example considering how most gods were...
Instead, she found those who struggled against and overcame their own darkness to be far more in tune with reality... and far more admirable.
It was something she had always wished for in many of her hosts, Jean Grey included.
Had this merely been her own multiverse, she honestly wouldn't have minded poaching this man and making him one of her hosts as well.
Rather ironic, considering she had already "poached" the Second Primarch from the very same individual.
Sadly, he possessed flaws that ultimately disqualified him.
His devotion was directed almost exclusively toward humanity rather than toward life or creation as a whole.
More importantly, several aspects of his mind reminded her far too much of a certain bald telepath.
She did NOT like that particular mutant, regardless of how "moral" his actions might have seemed.
For a brief moment, the Phoenix genuinely contemplated whether simply destroying this human's soul would be the better option.
In the end, she discarded the thought.
She understood there were other factors at play and as "complicated" as he was it was better for him to live.
To the Emperor's surprise, the psychic restraints binding him suddenly vanished.
The Phoenix uttered only a single word.
"Worthy."
Nothing more.
She tore open a rift through the Warp and disappeared into it.
The Emperor wasted no time.
He immediately returned to Terra, his astral projection racing back to his physical body as quickly as possible.
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Back on Azeroth, not even a minute had passed.
The Phoenix merged once more with her projection before ascending high into the sky.
"What!? Alastor!"
Varian's eyes widened as he shouted in alarm, wondering—along with everyone else—what his "brother" intended to do.
Once she had reached her desired height, the Phoenix gathered an immense amount of cosmic energy before her.
It condensed into a gigantic sphere of radiant energy, glowing with the same golden-orange brilliance as her flames.
Without hesitation, she fired it downward as a colossal beam aimed directly at the damaged Sunwell.
Everyone's eyes widened.
They hurriedly put as much distance between themselves and the Sunwell as possible as the beam struck it before continuing unobstructed, plunging ever deeper until it reached the very core of the planet.
Yet when it reached its destination, it caused not the slightest hint of destruction.
Instead, immeasurable quantities of life energy poured directly into the "heart" of Azeroth itself.
Ancient wounds that had lingered since time immemorial began to heal.
Damage sustained eons ago was repaired as the slumbering world-soul's awakening accelerated dramatically.
Finally, the beam faded.
The Phoenix had completed the last task she needed to accomplish.
Deep within Azeroth...
"Her" eyes opened.
She was finally awake!
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"What in the name of Arda...?"
Thoras stepped forward, wearing a thoroughly confused expression as he looked up at the Phoenix.
"Something happened, but what—?!"
Genn also stepped forward, only to be interrupted as the ground began trembling beneath everyone's feet!
"Hey, Krasus! Is that normal?!"
Rhonin grabbed onto Krasus' draconic leg to steady himself before pointing toward the ocean.
The sea was glowing with a brilliant blue radiance while magnificent auroras danced across the sky.
"No, Rhonin!" Krasus answered immediately.
"It is most certainly not normal!"
Aegwynn, Malfurion, and Alexstrasza all felt a titanic life force stirring around them.
Yet none of them could comprehend what it was or why it was causing such an overwhelming reaction throughout the world.
Except Tyrande.
Her eyes widened in shock as she slowly looked down at the ground beneath her feet.
Several pieces of an ancient puzzle suddenly clicked into place.
All this time... this world was actually a Titan!?
The current phenomenon wasn't limited to the Isle alone.
Across Azeroth, people looked skyward in awe as magnificent auroras illuminated the skies.
Many of them fell to their knees, believing they were witnessing a divine miracle.
Along every coastline, sailors and coastal settlements watched in stunned silence as the oceans glowed with a beautiful sapphire light.
Azeroth had awoken.
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Back on Terra, the Emperor returned to his body before immediately collapsing to one knee, gasping for breath as sweat poured from his brow.
"My Lord!"
Valdor was the first to react, quickly rushing forward to support his lord and creator.
Malcador was equally alarmed.
He knew just how exceedingly rare it was to see his oldest friend in such a condition.
He hurried over alongside Valdor while the Custodes helped the Emperor onto an enlarged chair.
"My friend..."
"What happened?"
The Emperor took a few moments to steady his breathing and collect his thoughts before raising his gaze to meet that of his oldest confidant.
His expression was grave...
Yet conflicted.
"Malcador..."
"Things may very well have changed."
Malcador's expression hardened.
"How much?"
The Emperor remained silent for a brief moment before answering.
"More than we could have ever predicted..."
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