Aiden once again experienced the feeling of his soul leaving his body. The old man of time appeared before him, seemingly surprised: "It's only been a few days, and you're summoning me again? My appearance fee is very high."
"When you have money, you have to be capricious, old man. There's a plague happening here. I want to ask you, does Valoran have any means to deal with it? I think Soraka should be able to do it." Aiden thought that the Star Child was once a woman close to a god, and a healer, so dealing with a mere plague should be a piece of cake.
Zilean nodded and said, "A plague is indeed not a problem for her, but the problem is, you can't summon her."
"Why?" Aiden was full of question marks, "Is my energy point not enough?"
"Didn't Kayle and Vayne tell you?" Zilean looked at him strangely.
"Tell me what?"
Zilean shook his head and said, "You care too little about your heroes, and Valoran behind you—let me make a long story short. After we discovered that the Rune Lands were on the verge of shattering and no longer suitable for survival, finding a new world suitable for survival became Valoran's most urgent problem. But finding a new world is not so easy. If things don't go well, it may take hundreds or thousands of years. Time waits for no one. By that time, we would have been swallowed up along with Valoran.
So we came up with a solution, a way to make time wait for people.
Void Walker Kassadin once obtained a gem with unique properties during a plane trip. It can almost perfectly fit the summoning spell. Through it, the summoner can summon something that has signed a contract with it across planes. Yes, that is the Heart of Valoran that I gave you.
Then Kassadin poured most of his divine power into this crystal, so that the entire Valoran could respond to its call; Ice Crystal Phoenix Anivia flew all over the continent, freezing all living things; Star Child used the power of the stars to maintain their lives; Finally, I reversed the rules of time, allowing the time of the Rune Lands to stay at a time point when a certain continent had not yet collapsed.
In this way, the entire Valoran has become a world like an ice sculpture. What do you think of this concept? You can imagine the scene of the world standing still and covered in ice and snow. Because of this, you cannot summon a few of us with the Heart of Valoran now, because we all have our own responsibilities in our hometown."
"Stopping time, freezing the world? This, this is too crazy!" Aiden looked at Zilean in disbelief, completely forgetting that this old man had teased him with time bombs in the Emerald Dream.
But he felt that things wouldn't be that easy: because doing so completely violated the laws of the universe.
"You told me yourself that magic that forcibly interferes with the timeline will be punished by time. What is the price you pay for doing this?"
"How can you block a rushing river?" The Time Guardian looked at him and asked.
"Build a dam!"
"Yes, you are very smart, then you should be able to think of what the price is." Zilean didn't point it out, and then his figure disappeared like this.
… …
As a workaholic, Vayne immediately began to investigate possible spies in Stratholme after dinner. As long as there is such a guy who secretly relies on the Scourge forces, then he will definitely not be able to escape Vayne's eyes. After learning about the special abilities of this female hero, Uther gave her extremely high authority: except for the people who came today, everyone, including Dathrohan, must fully cooperate with Vayne's identification. Once they resist, under extreme circumstances, she will have the right to execute them directly—that is, to kill first and report later.
On the other side, Angel Kayle also participated in the research and cracking of the plague. Mages and the Church have learned from her the mechanism by which her blessing prevents people from getting the plague. Now everyone is working together to try which force will have a restraining effect on the plague venom.
She is trying to use her divine power to dispel the plague of an infected person, but with little effect. So far, no method has been found to directly eliminate the plague on the infected person without endangering their lives.
At this moment, she suddenly sensed the aura of her own kind.
Aiden brought the two angels to her.
"Left-wing angel Pamyel greets Lady Kayle!"
"Right-wing angel Ophiel greets Lady Kayle!"
The two new angels knelt on one knee to the Judicator Angel to salute.
"Rise, my sisters." Kayle's voice became very gentle, "How long have we not seen each other, a thousand years or two thousand years?"
"Lord Kayle, we were frozen in ice and completely lost our sense of time. It was like a moment, but also like countless years."
"Come on, my sisters, I need your help." Kayle conveyed all her knowledge about this world to the two subordinates through a special method of her eternal race. "We must try our best to find a way to crack this plague—a way that does not harm the infected."
Angel Yan glanced at the infected person lying on the hospital bed and asked suspiciously: "Don't we usually just purify this kind of situation?"
Kayle glanced at her, "This is not our world. We must respect the laws here, understand?"
"Yes, Lady Kayle!" Angel Yan was as quiet as a cicada in winter. Kayle's previous kindness almost made her forget the memory of following her in the Eternal Kingdom for thousands of years, which was almost only killing.
"Kayle," Aiden stopped the Judicator Angel who was about to start the experiment with the two deputies, and asked hesitantly, "I want to know, how long can Zilean last?"
Kayle, his eyes beneath the helmet fixed on him, gently shook his head and said, "I don't know; time is a peculiar force. How long he can endure doesn't depend on the amount of his divine power, but on the strength of his will. Perhaps even if you summoned all the living beings of Valoran, he would be fine, or perhaps in the next instant, you'll find that the Heart of Valoran can no longer summon him."
Aiden probably already understood what the inability to summon the Chrono-grandfather meant.
Zilean's forceful interference with the timeline, stopping time, was like forcibly building a dam to block water. To ensure the water doesn't pass through, the water will accumulate more and more, the dam will be built higher and higher, and one day, the dam will be unable to withstand the pressure and collapse.
The timeline is the same. Forcibly blocking the river of time will eventually be destroyed by the accumulated karma of the timeline. At that time, the entire Valoran will be punished by time, a punishment more terrible than the 'End of Time'.
Aiden opened his mouth, annoyed, "I hate this kind of completely unpredictable thing!" Then he added, "Time is tight. I know a little Druidic magic. Let me participate too, maybe I can help a little!"
For the first time, he felt the urgency of time. If he didn't speed up his pace, he might lose his greatest reliance one day.
"What's the situation with your experiments?" Aiden asked Kayle about their progress.
"Not good," Kayle shook his head, "These infected individuals begin to reject the magic of light after the plague enters their bodies. Archbishop Faol says that potions and holy water with the light attribute will only cause harm to these infected, without any dispelling effect."
"So, they are already similar to evil creatures?"
"Yes."
Aiden asked again, "Is there anyone proficient in dark magic? I think we can try using dark magic to dispel it. Since their bodies are already rejecting light, they can't possibly reject darkness too, right!"
"Perhaps, but who should we get? I'm afraid no one here is proficient in dark magic," Kayle shook his head.
Come to think of it, Kel'Thuzad specializes in necromancy. This plague must contain the effects of necromancy. Those who are truly proficient in this way, how could they come to such an occasion—these 'talents' have all gone to the Scourge side.
"Let me try the effect of Druidic magic!" Aiden placed his hand on the forehead of an infected person and activated his Cenarius mark with his mind, a green light passing through his palm into the infected person's body.
After casting the spell, Aiden pried open the infected person's mouth to confirm the results of his experiment: the tongue of this middle-aged man still had obvious black spots—the most obvious symptom of the infected.
He didn't show any rejection of this natural magic, but he also didn't show any affinity for it. The spell was ineffective.
"You guys continue the research, I'll go find someone to discuss it with!" Aiden left the three angels in charge here.
Aiden still had some memories of Farinell, the assistant to Archmage Drendan: if he remembered correctly, this guy later became the top figure in the Royal Apothecary Society of the Undercity, a loyal subordinate of Queen Sylvanas. Then his apothecary talent must be quite high. Aiden felt that he was the most likely person among this group to crack the plague.
He came to the research area of the Dalaran mages, found Farinell, and waited for the other party to finish the experiment at hand before finding an opportunity to chat with him: "Mr. Farinell, if I may be so bold, I'm afraid that the research methods we are using now will take a long time to crack the plague. What do you think about changing our approach?"
Farinell asked, "Honorable Mr. Aiden, what are your insights?" He knew that this black-haired young man could directly represent a country, and could be on an equal footing with Dalaran. Although this country doesn't have many people yet, each of them is extraordinary—he just brought two more angels!
"Don't use honorifics and polite words, we are now engaged in academic discussion—what I mean is, we know that the plague researched by Kel'Thuzad is actually a combination of pharmacy and necromancy. It may not be so easy to solve it with magic alone. I think we should create an antidote in the same way it was produced, also combining pharmacy and purification magic."
Farinell nodded, "Yes, you are very right. Please continue!"
Aiden then continued, "So I think the most urgent task is to identify the components of this plague, including the physical components and the magical components. That is to say, let's first figure out its essence, and then prescribe the right medicine to study how to crack it, which may be easier."
Farinell was inspired by these words and said excitedly: "You are very right, I will experiment in this direction!" He was about to go, but thought of something, and his face hesitated: "Your Excellency, we have very little of the original plague solution. Using this method will definitely require a sufficient amount of the original solution. To be honest, we only have less than 0.5 ounces (1 ounce is about 28 grams) of the original solution in the alchemy laboratory."
"There are still some ghouls releasing the plague in Stratholme, they must still have some on hand. It seems we need to notify the brothers of the Knights to look for some."