safety. Filled with renewed hope, Velen sought out other eredar whom he believed he could trust.
As Sargeras arrived on Argus to corrupt the unsuspecting eredar, Velen and his followers made their daring escape. They gathered aboard a massive naaru dimensional fortress known as the Genedar and fled their homeworld forever. From that day forward, Velen and his followers would be known as the draenei , or “exiled ones.”
On Argus, Sargeras bent the other eredar to his unholy will. Fanatical fel whisperings surged through the minds of the world’s inhabitants, drowning out their ability to reason. Sargeras also infused the eredar with fel energies, twisting their forms to resemble hideous demons.
Sargeras found quick use for his new fel-corrupted converts. The eredar settled in as commanders within the Burning Legion. Kil’jaeden and Archimonde would stand as the most gifted and powerful among them.
Sargeras molded Kil’jaeden’s innate cunning and intellect to suit the Legion’s designs. Known thereafter as “the Deceiver,” Kil’jaeden was charged with using his wits to beguile the mortal civilizations of the physical universe and transform them into agents of the Burning Legion.
Sargeras also saw Archimonde’s talent in motivating his people as an invaluable tool to strengthen the Burning Crusade. Archimonde, henceforth known as “the Defiler,” would use his powerful will to drive the demonic masses to acts of extreme violence and barbarism. He would draw out and temper the furious strength in all those who served under him, remaking them into weapons of annihilation.
Under the eredar’s leadership, the ranks of the Burning Legion swelled with new demonic races, gathered from theTwisting Nether and the worlds of the Great Dark. Archimonde empowered the monstrous pit lords and conscripted them to serve as living siege engines. They would inspire dread in all those they faced. The mo’arg, a highly resourceful and industrious race of demons, became the Legion’s armorers. They would forge fel-infused weaponry and constructs to besiege the worlds of the cosmos. Kil’jaeden also brought in the devious succubi to infiltrate prospective worlds for conquest and gather intelligence about their civilizations. The brutal doomguard, demon warriors of unsurpassed strength and cruelty, fought as the Legion’s shock troops. The zealous shivarra became the Legion’s foremost mystics and advisors. They fostered a fanatical loyalty to Sargeras.
F LIGHT OF THE D RAENEI
Velen’s rejection of Sargeras’s grand vision and his subsequent escape enraged Kil’jaeden. Even though the draenei had vanished without a trace, the Deceiver vowed never to stop hunting them, bent on vengeance for what he saw as Velen’s betrayal .
SARGERAS AND THE BURNING LEGION
These wicked creatures, among many others, bolstered the might of the Burning Legion. Pleased with his burgeoning forces, Sargeras launched the demons into the Great Dark, renewing his Burning Crusade against creation.
In the ages to come, the Legion would scour countless other worlds and civilizations from existence.
M eanwhile, unbeknownst to Sargeras, the last embers of thePantheon’s power clung to life. Although Sargeras had destroyed thetitans’ physical forms,Norgannon’s grand spellwork had preserved their souls. The disembodied titan spirits hurtled through the Great Dark toward the world of Azeroth and its keepers. There, the Pantheon hoped they could locate physical forms to inhabit. If they could not find such vessels, the titans feared their weakened spirits would soon fade into oblivion.
Upon reaching Azeroth, the depleted spirits slammed into the keepers, who had been crafted by the Pantheon’s own hands. The keepers were immediately overwhelmed as the titans’ powers flared in their minds. They witnessed fragmented memories of distant worlds, of lifetimes never lived and wonders never seen. But just as quickly as the influx of power had come,
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