When Uther no longer hesitated and raised the knight's sword in his hand to kill many people in the Royal City of Lordaeron, Baron Titus Rivendell, who hurried back to Stratholme from the front line of the battlefield, was finally ready.
After obtaining the magic network access permission from Quel'Thalas in advance, with the help of the Stratholme mage's teleportation spell, Baron Rivendell and his accompanying staff were directly teleported to the scheduled meeting place - the outskirts of Fairwind Village.
Yanying Manor.
As the local host and leader, Matis Yanying personally came to greet him outside the gate, and welcomed Sarlayan and Rivendell, who arrived almost at the same time, into the manor.
Titus Rivendell is a human aristocrat with an ordinary appearance. To be honest, his only distinguishing feature is that his face is slightly paler than others.
"Um?"
When entering the manor conference hall and shaking hands politely with Baron Rivendell, Sarlayan was keenly aware of something strange.
'This is...a weak power of death?'
Sarlayan calmly checked the vitality of Baron Rivendell.
'He is still alive, but his soul is mixed with a part of the gray power of death. The rumors are indeed true.'
Normally, it is impossible for the power of death to be mixed in the human soul. The abnormal situation of Baron Rivendell means that he has indeed secretly been in contact with the Curse Cult.
After confirming this fact, Sarlayan took his seat and glanced at the staff brought by Baron Rivendell with the corner of his eye. Sure enough, he discovered the clue.
There are a total of 5 people accompanying Baron Rivendell, and the souls of 4 of them are like Baron Rivendell, and they can vaguely feel some disturbing power of death.
And the last person...
Sarlayan narrowed his eyes and stared at this mysterious man who always wore a hood and behaved quite impolitely.
As the host, Mattis Flame Eagle was also a little dissatisfied with this guest who was always unwilling to take off his hood, and deliberately did not stop Sarlayan from staring at him for a long time, which was somewhat rude.
Baron Rivendell seemed a little embarrassed by this. He turned to look at the silent staff member and said, "How about you..."
"Ha~"
Before Baron Rivendell could think of a way to smooth things over, Sarlayan suddenly let out a chuckle.
"No need to cover up, old friend, are you testing me?"
"Haha~"
A familiar, slightly hoarse voice came from the mouth of the hooded man. He finally raised his hands and took off the gray-black hood on his head, revealing a middle-aged human face as pale as snow.
"Long time no see, Sarlayan."
Sharlayan responded with a smile: "It's been a long time since we last met in person, Kel'Thuzad."
As the contemporary leader of the Flame Eagle family among the four nobles, Mattis knew many important national policies that were classified as top secrets by the Sun King. When he heard the name Kel'Thuzad, his eyes immediately widened.
"You are……"
"Shh~"
Kel'Thuzad, whose expression didn't change much, raised his index finger to signal Matis not to say anything.
Mattis was not ignorant of the importance. He quickly calmed down his slightly fluctuating emotions, waved his hand to his confidants to close the door of the conference hall, and asked the mages to cast spells to seal the venue to prevent any sound from inside the room from spreading outside.
After confirming that he was fully prepared, Mattis looked at Sarlayan with a wry smile.
"Salayan, you really gave me a big surprise."
Sharlayan spread his hands innocently: "Come to think of it, I didn't expect to see Kel'Thuzad here."
"If you say so..."
Sarlayan looked at Baron Rivendell, who was still a little confused, with a deep look: "This Baron should be yours, right?"
Kel'Thuzad, who had already transformed himself into a lich with the help of Sharlayan, nodded slightly, took out a kitten from the wide sleeves of his robe and stroked it gently.
"I was a native of Stratholme before I went to Dalaran to study. My family is a small noble that has long declined. Titus is a good friend of mine for many years. We have known each other since we were very young."
In addition to Baron Rivendell himself, the few staff he brought were also members of the Curse Sect, and they were Kel'Thuzad's confidants. They only listened to Kel'Thuzad's words and did not care about the Lich King.
After confirming that everyone present was trustworthy, Sarlayan asked straight to the point: "So? You took the risk to meet with me with Baron Rivendell. There must be something important that is not convenient to talk about over remote communication, right?"
"really."
Placing Mr. Bigworth the kitten on the table and letting it pace freely back and forth on the large conference table, Kel'Thuzad's already somewhat stiff expression became more serious.
"With your sensitivity to the development of the situation, you should have already understood the current situation in Lordaeron, right?"
Sharlayan nodded: "I have been following the development of the situation in Lordaeron. What? Ner'zhul also plans to get involved in this internal fight?"
Kel'Thuzad nodded, but then shook his head and explained: "He really wanted to take advantage of the turmoil in the Royal City of Lordaeron to expand the influence of the Cursed Sect, but I persuaded him."
"Why?"
"It's very simple."
Kel'Thuzad's cold-toned eyes flashed with a cold light: "Because the Burning Legion also wants to make a fuss about the civil war in Lordaeron, those big bats have invested a lot of manpower around the royal city."
"If my prediction is correct, the Silver Hand, which has always remained neutral, should have started to take action under your guidance, right? Now is not a good time for the Cursed Sect to join in. Otherwise, the two of them will be beaten fiercely.
Square wave affects.”
The reason why the Cult of the Damned has been able to develop rapidly throughout Lordaeron is not because of their strong hard power, but because these guys' actions are covert enough and their slogans can easily attract those elderly dignitaries who are afraid of death.
In terms of strength, the Scourge's manpower in Lordaeron is far inferior to that of the Burning Legion, which has been deployed for several years.
Since Kel'Thuzad had guessed in advance that the Silver Hand would go on a killing spree in the royal city, he certainly would not throw away the men he had worked so hard to develop to die.
The turmoil in Lordaeron happened right next door to Quel'Thalas, and Kel'Thuzad knew that Sharlayan would definitely take action.
After predicting the development of the situation through his understanding of Sharlayan, Kel'Thuzad changed his mind and planned to slowly expand his power from the outside to the inside, starting from the noble lords in the countryside far away from the center of power in Lordaeron.
In order to avoid being discovered by Ner'zhul, the remote communication time between Kel'Thuzad and Sharlayan was very short each time, and they were unable to exchange opinions in detail on more complex layouts.
Taking advantage of this opportunity to accompany his old friend Baron Rivendell to the appointment, Kel'Thuzad planned to communicate with Sharlayan face to face to prevent both parties from accidentally injuring "friendly forces" in subsequent actions.
While listening to the plans of Kel'Thuzad and Sharlayan, Baron Rivendell's expression kept changing. Matis, who heard this top secret for the first time, was no better than him.
Both of them were noble lords who tended to lead troops. They could only understand half of their conversation, and gradually began to lose track of the rhythm.
In desperation, the two brothers came together and chatted with each other with a wry smile, which also happened to bring the relationship between the two families that had maintained a friendship for more than 2,000 years closer.
On this side, Sarlayan is still exchanging information with Kel'Thuzad.
"So, the Burning Legion is determined to take this opportunity to tear off a piece of land in the center of Lordaeron and use it as a stronghold?"
Kel'Thuzad nodded: "At least judging from the current action patterns of those big bats, this is indeed the case, but I always feel that something is wrong."
"Hmph~" Sarlayan reminded with a sneer: "Don't think those Dread Lords are really devoted to the Burning Legion."
"Speaking of which, you probably don't know the true origin of the Nasrezim race, right?"
After learning from Sarlayan that the so-called Dreadlord originally came from the Shadow Realm, Kel'Thuzad, who had little emotional fluctuations after becoming a lich, couldn't help but look shocked.
"Is that so? Then..."
Kel'Thuzad narrowed his eyes slightly and analyzed: "The strange behavior of those Dread Lords makes sense."
"On the surface, they are fighting for the Burning Legion, but in fact their butts have been sitting on the side of the Shadow Realm."
"I guess they want to take this opportunity to create unrest under the banner of the Burning Legion and send more fresh souls from Azeroth to the warden in the Maw."