Sharlayan didn't know much about the timeline of the Shadowlands.
At this current point in time, the Blighted Realm of Zlos and the Hell Abyss are far from being born. The death subplane that has long been subordinate to Sharlayan has been temporarily banned, and there is no other way to find it for a while.
Gateway to the Shadow Realm.
However, Sharlayan had no intention of going to the Shadow Realm in the ancient times tens of thousands of years ago. He only needed to deal with the guy who stole souls in Azeroth.
One thing to say is that although Sarlayan and Valeela suspected that Denathrius was behind the scenes, they did not have any evidence and they just subconsciously put the blame on the troublemaker.
After calming down and thinking further, Sarlayan told Valeera another counter-intuitive guess.
"Is there a possibility that in this era, Zoval has not been exiled to the Abyss, and the one who sneaked into Azeroth to cause trouble is not the troublemaker Denathrius, but the Arbitrator Zoval who is in a period of confusion?"
"Zoval..." Valila said thoughtfully: "Why do you think it's him?"
The next stop for the two Sarlayans will be to venture into C'Thun's territory.
Different from the water element territory and the relatively peaceful central area that are between the forces of the two ancient gods, C'Thun is trying his best to fight against the army of Titan creations led by Odin and other guardians. You can guess where it is with your butt.
It won't be peaceful.
"It's just a whim. To be honest, this possibility is indeed possible, but the probability is low."
On the way south, Sarlayan analyzed to Valeera: "Zovar was not born with a traitorous nature. Before he was defeated by other Eternals and thrown into the abyss, he was the arbiter in charge of the eternal city of Oribos.
Officer, responsible for reviewing all souls entering the Shadow Realm."
"In other words, Zoval must have struggled and hesitated for a period of time before he decided to go dark. Maybe he would go to Azeroth to find inspiration."
Valeera nodded and said: "It's not impossible. I heard the Queen of Winter say that Zoval, who is still the arbiter, foresaw some kind of threat and entered a... how should I say? hysterical state?"
"He believed that the rules created by the Firstborn were flawed. After convincing his colleagues to no avail, he radically tried to seize the marks of other Eternals and entered the Tomb of the Firstborn to rewrite the rules. However, in the end, they failed and were defeated by the four Eternals.
Banished to the Maw and imprisoned.”
After Valeela finished telling the story she saw from the perspective of the Winter Queen, she asked Sarlayan very curiously: "So what exactly is the threat that Zoval saw? I always feel that...his depraved mode seems to be...
Where have you heard of it?"
"Ha" Sarlayan shrugged with a half-smile: "Of course you have heard of it. Is Zovar's experience very similar to Sargeras?"
"Foreseeing the threat, trying to unite his compatriots, and then going dark and fighting after being rejected. This is almost exactly the same as Sargeras's fall process."
Valeela was stunned for a moment, then shook her head and laughed: "But the results were different. Sargeras successfully destroyed the Pantheon, but Zovar was defeated and imprisoned."
Sarlayan smiled meaningfully: "Since their experiences are so similar, but the endings are different, then... can I make a bold guess that the so-called threats foreseen by the warden are also the same ones that Sargeras is wary of?
Is it related to the Lord of the Void?"
"Hmm..." Valeela frowned and considered for a moment: "Maybe, but unfortunately we don't have any evidence. Moreover, with our current strength and vision, it is too early to consider the threat of the Lord of the Void."
"Indeed." Sarlayan sighed helplessly: "Not to mention the Lord of the Void, we can't even defeat her lackey the Ancient God. There is no point in thinking so far, it will only increase troubles."
"The road to a bright future must be down-to-earth and forward step by step. No matter what the big shots think, we can only do what we can first."
…
Sarlayan and Valeera, who had just left the territory of the water element and had a relatively smooth journey, were immediately attacked by a wave of Qiraji.
With the current strength of the two of them, it is difficult for these insects, which are generally only at the elite level, to pose a threat to them. It is meaningless no matter how large the number is.
In order to save time and prevent the battle from dragging on too long and attracting more subsequent enemies, Sarlayan directly transformed back into his dragon prototype and cleared the battlefield instantly with a sip of charged three-color salt soda.
When the Qiraji in other areas realized something was wrong through the sudden disappearance of a large number of link signals in the honeycomb network, and rushed to the scene from their own defense areas, what they saw was only a huge black pit, and nothing else.
No clues were left.
In today's war era, it is normal for the enemy and ourselves to encounter each other in the wild.
The cellular network is indeed very convenient in transmitting information. The accidents that occurred in the border areas were quickly learned by the high-level Qiraji in the center.
However, this loss of troops did not attract much attention from the decision-makers under C'Thun. Most people thought that this hundred-man team was just unfortunate enough to encounter a Titan Guardian-level enemy, and the most likely reason was that they bumped into Odin.
Before he was awarded the title of chief administrator, Odin had already distinguished himself on the battlefield.
This brave warrior with a flaming beard wields the powerful power of light.
Different from the Holy Light used by the Naaru, Odin's power of light is more blazing in form, like a blazing sun, burning those who dare to oppose him into black ashes.
Judging from the scorched black marks on the scene, most of the Qiraji's top brass agreed with this speculation.
Sharlayan and Valeera have no idea about C'Thun's forces for the time being.
After dealing with the unexpected encounter with the scout team, the two changed their previous high-speed pace and slowed down in a low-key manner to investigate the reasons behind the disappearance of souls in C'Thun's territory.
As he went deeper along the way, under the pressure of the environment, Sarlayan learned the transformation spell without any teacher, and adjusted the appearance of himself and Valeera.
In the eyes of outsiders, they are just two shorter faceless men.
In fact, it is not accurate to say that he is self-taught. As early as a few years ago, after Sharlayan was activated by Malygos to activate the blue dragon bloodline, Stellagosa instilled a large number of practical tips into him like a duck.
Spells.
You can not learn it for now, but at least prepare it first, maybe you will use it in the future.
Facts have proved that Stellagosa's foresight was correct.
Using the cover of the transformation spell, Sarlayan and Valeela passed through several villages and towns under the name of the Dark Empire without any hindrance.
The local residents felt a little weird about the two faceless men speaking Qiraji, but considering that Qiraji was also one of the official languages of the Dark Empire, the people of the Dark Empire did not take this small problem to heart.
As the two of them gradually penetrated deep into the rear of C'Thun's forces, they finally obtained some useful information.
"Is this the village that the high-level insect man mentioned?"
Based on the intelligence obtained in the nearest city, the two came to the outside of a long-abandoned small village. Valeera immediately began to investigate carefully.
As an elite member of the Backlight Blade who is responsible for tasks such as intelligence transmission and secret investigations, this kind of work of tracking down clues is Valeera's strength.
With the help of Sarlayan, who has strong energy flow perception ability, Valeera quickly found some strange traces that should not belong to the Dark Empire.
"This is……"
Valeera, wearing special gloves, carefully picked up a small cloud of dust from a backlit ground.
"Salayan, come and take a look too."
"Huh? Did you find anything?"
Sarlayan, who was relaxing outside, quickly came over and saw the long-dried green soil on Valeera's hands at a glance.
"If I'm not mistaken, what's on this... seems to be preservative?"
After questioning and investigating along the way, the two obtained a lot of information related to the case of missing souls.
For some victims, only their souls disappeared and their bodies remained intact, but in some places, like this small village, both people and souls disappeared without a trace in just a few days.
Valeela discovered a pattern based on the results of the survey and sampling. Those who left their bodies and lost their souls were Qiraji, while those who disappeared with their bodies were faceless men.
After analysis, Valeela came to a conclusion.
The person behind this was probably concerned about the Qiraji's hive mind network and didn't want to be caught by them, so they just stole their souls without anyone noticing.
The Faceless Men do not have this convenient function that can connect the entire clan mentally, and communication between villages and towns still needs to be achieved through relatively primitive physical contact.
When the surrounding neighbors discovered the anomaly in this small village, no one was left in the village, as if the entire world had evaporated overnight.
"Oh, the fox's tail is finally exposed."
After checking the degree of dryness of the preservative, Sarlayan said thoughtfully: "At least one month has passed. After such a long incident, it is difficult for this small village to find more useful clues. We are still continuing.
Investigate in depth.”
"I have a hunch that we are not far away from the guy hiding behind us."