After passing through the magical portal that had been resting in the side of the tree, or one of the sides anyway, Spitfire, Rainbow, and the rest of their allies readied their weapons as they appeared on a ramp of some kind that was made from a thick darkened root that had to be connected to the massive tree that Khadgar had brought them to, even though the mage in question had no doubt returned to Dalaran so he could join the others that were heading for Suramar and the area that the rebellion was resting in, as there was no telling what in the world might be waiting for them or for any heroes who might be looking to bring down Xavius. Malfurion was, of course, with them and agreed with her course of action, as he also had his clawed hands at the ready and might be getting ready to case of one his spells at whatever they discovered as they headed through the corrupted limbs of the tree they were going to be climbing, or at least the corrupted interior since she was sure the portal had moved them a little bit, dropping them off near the path that would bring them to where their foe had to be resting, or his henchmen anyway. Before they moved forward, however, Malfurion quickly informed them that the portal had allowed them to enter Shaladrassil, which happened to be the name of the World Tree they had entered, and he suspected that the path in front of them would lead them right to the top, where he sensed portals that would take them to where Xavius' main followers, corrupted or otherwise, would be resting and waiting for either invaders to come or for the word to be given so they could invade Val'sharah, and a town had been built under the roots, a ruined place called Shala'nir, which they had avoided thanks to Khadgar's magic. Spitfire found that to be interesting, even though she was more focused on the fact that Shaladrassil had been corrupted by the Void, due to the fact that it appeared to be Xavius' power, despite Malfurion informing them that the Nightmare Lord had been an elf that had been transformed during the first invasion of Azeroth, back before his brother started down the path he now walked, meaning that Xavius was far stronger than she or Rainbow believed, going from Arcane to Fel and finally to Void.
"If memory serves, we should be approaching the resting place of Nythendra, a green dragon who serves as a guardian of Shaladrassil, though she's usually asleep and will need someone to awaken her," Malfurion continued, referring to the part of the tree that they were entering right now, as while he talked he started to walk up the root path that was resting right in front of them, before he came to a stop as he noticed something that bothered him, resting in the circular area that was at the top of the root path happened to be a decomposing dragon, one who stood almost as tall as the building they had found Oculeth hiding in, where it looked like it was partly skeletal and appeared to be infested with insects, which had to be what reanimated it when someone approached it, "oh, Nythendra... what has the Nightmare done to you? Its twisted her into a mockery of life by devouring her while she was sleeping and has no doubt corrupted her personality entirely, meaning she is now one of Xavius' pawns... we'll need to bring her down to move forward."
"Wonderful, we've only just entered Shaladrassil and there's something in our way already," Spitfire remarked, as while all of them had been expecting to find some enemies before locating Xavius, where defeating the Nightmare Lord would be the key to finding the Life Essence that would stabilize the Arcan'dor, none of them were expecting the first thing that they laid eyes on would be one of the more powerful minions who were forced to serve Xavius and his foul masters, as it was hard to tell if he was still allied with the Legion or if he only served his Void masters, before she spotted some foul dirty brown looking creatures that looked like moving blobs, oozes according to Scarlet when she noticed them, "based on what we're seeing it looks like Nythendra is sleeping, or whatever passes as sleep for a now dead dragon whose corpse is being forced to fight whoever invades Xavius' corrupted World Tree, but something tells me once we take down the oozes she'll wake up and attack us, so be ready for anything."
Rainbow and the others nodded their heads in agreement, as the more experienced heroes knew that this screamed trap, after everything each of them had witnessed over their years of protecting Azeroth, which was followed by them walking out of the area they had been standing in and approached the oozes that were scattered around Nythendra, five of them to be exact, who paused in what they were doing and started to move towards them, moving incredibly slow and made the four death knights laugh for a moment. Spitfire suspected that they had observed oozes in the past that could move at a much faster speed than what they were seeing right now, even if it wasn't by a great deal, but that didn't stop them from lashing out at their enemies, Scarlet using the Blades of the Fallen Prince to slash through the dirty brown colored liquid substance these foes were made of, Zuleth used his battleaxe, Shadowmourne, to slice his way through another as he was joined by the blood spec death knight, a male blood elf, while a female human hacked into Scarlet's with a greatsword that radiated unholy energy. While they did that the rest of the heroes joined them, doing their best to divide themselves and their power among five enemies, though out of everyone Malfurion stood back and seemed to be focused on the energies that were around them, the Life energies that all druids used, no doubt trying to form a counter of some kind to possibly restrain Nythendra, meaning he might be hesitant to end her corrupted form and let her soul move on, but, after a couple of moments, he shook his head and indicated that he couldn't do anything, not without potentially drawing Xavius' gaze to them before they were ready, before he rushed into battle and used his power to call down a burst of lunar light that just so happened to burn the ooze he had targeted, causing it to hiss in anger for a moment, or Spitfire assumed that was the case, before it fell back. Fortunately the group found that none of the oozes stood much of a chance and were easy to take down, despite the fact that each of them tried to explode insects to injure them or plague the area to weaken those that were nearby, though when they fell Spitfire found that they left little puddles behind that just stood there for a couple of seconds, but once the fifth and final one fell all of the puddles moved and rushed towards Nythendra's body, allowing the decay to empower her once more and caused the heroes to gather in a crescent formation between her and the root path that had brought them to her domain.
For a few seconds nothing happened, as Nythendra just laid there, as still as a statue in Spitfire's eyes, before the insects and decay surged through her body and forced the dead dragon's skeleton to rise up, something that enraged Malfurion as he witnessed it happen, not to mention their druid friends, before she faced them and seemed to be waiting for them to come at her, no doubt pausing to give herself a chance to understand what had happened to her and the powers that she now had access to, something that caused Spitfire to nod to the others before advancing towards the dragon, as she was standing between them and the Life Essence they were after.
"The Dream has changed, and yet I will continue to protect it with all my power!" Nythendra roared, showing the heroes that there had to be some fragment of the green dragon trapped inside the twisted shell that was currently standing right in front of them, even though that small piece was corrupted by the Void-infested Life energies that were controlling her body and made her see anyone who wasn't one of Xavius' allies as enemies, so instead of seeing Malfurion as an ally, like they would have been before her corruption, she now saw him as an intruder who wished to bring Shaladrassil and the Emerald Dream harm.
Instead of wasting time by challenging Nythendra in their base forms, like they would have done had they headed into one of the dungeons of the Broken Isles, such as when they went into the Halls of Valor to find the Aegis, Spitfire and Rainbow, sensing the difference in power between the corrupted green dragon and the enemies they had fought in the past, as she was far stronger than what they were expecting, transformed into their demonic forms and rushed at Nythendra without wasting a single moment, allowing Malfurion to shift into a massive light black furred bear that possessed his hair on the back of its body, while the rest of the heroes raised their weapons and charged into battle as well. The corrupted dragon lashed out at them with her right front claw, swinging at Spitfire as she flew through the air, though that was when Spitfire raised the Twinblades and parried the incoming attack before it could hit her, finding that her suspicions were correct and that none of them could take their foe lightly, otherwise she would knock them back and either seriously hurt them or, if she was lucky, kill them, though while she did that Rainbow flashed by the side of their foe and hacked into the side of her chest, cutting a gash that just seemed to spew out insects for a few seconds, which sealed itself not even a few seconds later and let her continue fighting like nothing had happened. Nythendra also opened her mouth and released her breath attack on them after that, where for a normal dragon it would have been fire, or possibly a burst of the element they were attuned to, but due to her corrupted nature their foe loosed a burst of vile corruption at them, a tainted breath that had a bunch of insects that would return to her in due time and had a dirty brown coloration to it as well, which was followed by the ground her attack hit becoming infected by the decay that had empowered her corrupted form. Fortunately the rest of Azeroth's heroes avoided the corrupted breath and the corrupted ground that was left in its wake, which would no doubt infest them if they were to step in it, and she even had an ability that allowed her to corrupt more of the ground that was around her, by slamming her claws into the ground and channeled her foul power into the arena they were fighting in, but those who were slashing at the dragon's sides made sure to avoid it like the plague while all of their ranged allies avoided any pools that appeared in the area they were standing in.
One thing Spitfire found was that none of her flames did anything to the surrounding area they were in, as the roots didn't burn when her flames touched them and nothing happened when Rainbow's lightning accidentally struck one a couple of moments later, meaning they had to be in an area that was empowered to resist falling apart, or maybe the World Tree was stronger than what both of them assumed, but such a thing didn't stop them from lashing out at Nythendra's sides as Malfurion clawed into their foe, who staggered as she continued to fight them.
Something that caused a problem for them was that Nythendra also had the power to dominate the minds of those who were sufficiently infected by the plague she happened to be spreading, which everyone discovered when it happened to one of the rogues who was righting by the back legs of the dragon and accidentally stepped into the pool of decay that had been resting nearby, where he was forced to turn on his own allies and tried to lash out at some of their healers, as it would weaken the group if such a thing happened, and he was stopped when Rainbow zapped him a tiny bit, allowing him to head back into battle while his actions gave them an idea of what might happen with the vile corruption. Spitfire had the feeling that the key to that power was resting inside the decay that their foe was using, a power derived from Life and had been corrupted by the Void, with the Void being a force that was known to totally corrupt everything and everyone it came into contact with, or so she was told and had a hard time believing since one of the priests in their group called upon the power of the Void to deal damage, even if it was a small amount of power so she could avoid being corrupted, but all that just confirmed why Nythendra was able to take control of whoever met some specific conditions, which they would just avoid from that point forward. Of course that was when Nythendra seemed to pause for a moment as her energy seemed to shift, something they noticed due to the unnatural energy inside her shifting away from her limbs and chest as every bit gathered in her mouth, showing that she was getting ready for a blast that could deal some massive damage to them if it were allowed to go off or hit someone, though that was when the dragon shifted her head and loosed a burst of dark gray energy, Death energy, that rushed towards Spitfire, almost as if Nythendra knew that she was the more dangerous one of the entire group and was trying to eliminate her before focusing on the others, or maybe Xavius knew that they were here and wanted to cut down on their forces before they reached him. Spitfire, on the other hand, swung her Twinblades for a moment and clashed with the incoming attack, stalling it before it could actually hit her chest or something, which was a good thing since she was sure Nythendra's Death power was far stronger than Sylvanas', and Helya had to be far stronger than the Banshee Queen, and it took all of her concentration to divert it into the ceiling of the chamber they were in, even if it just broke apart when it struck the roots.
Nythendra, however, collapsed on the ground a few moments later and seemed to go still for a time, where her energy did something interesting in Spitfire's eyes, insects swarmed out and seemed to litter the surrounding area as they gathered more decay inside their bodies, pulling in all of the Death energy that happened to be lingering in the air thanks to Spitfire breaking her foe's attack, so what they did was shift their attention and smashed the insects that had appeared, because all of them happened to be the key to bringing down Nythendra and even Malfurion got in on the action as well as he used a bit of his power to blast his targets into the ground while clawing others to death... and when the last insect fell they took a moment to watch as Nythendra raised once more, only to collapse into a pile of bones that no longer moved, meaning the battle had to be over.
"She was stronger than what I was expecting," Spitfire remarked, as while it might have appeared that they had beaten the undead dragon with ease, without sustaining any serious damage to them or losing someone, which was thanks to their healers making sure they were at full health, she knew that if that Death Breath had overpowered her, or struck someone else that wasn't her or Rainbow, most of them would have been seriously injured or even killed, especially since her arms were still shaking a little from having to cancel out that attack, before she glanced at the root path that seemed to be the way forward, one leading to the heart of the Nightmare, "and I have the feeling that we'll be facing foes that are around her level of strength, possibly higher in some cases... it's the Nightmare's doing, isn't it?"
"Indeed. The Nightmare can give those it corrupts incredible strength, even matching that of the Ancients at times, but the price Xavius' unwilling pawns pay is losing their free will and becoming slaves to his will," Malfurion replied, reverting to his base form once he was sure that Nythendra was dead, for real this time and that she wouldn't be getting back up to fight all of them the instant they lowered their guard, before he sighed as he laid eyes on the fallen dragon, knowing that she did everything in her power to stop Xavius from corrupting her, but at the very least she had been freed from this fate and could move on at long last, "...poor Nythendra, who faithfully served as the Guardian of the Dream for many years, she didn't deserve this... to be perverted into a gatekeeper of corruption and twisted by Xavius' madness."
"Part of me is excited to be facing strong opponents again, while another part is worried after witnessing that attack and thinking about what it could do," Rainbow said, though as she said that both she and Spitfire returned to their base forms not a few moments later, as while they could hold them for long periods of time, longer than most demon hunters, it was best not to remain in them for too long, especially since they weren't fighting such a powerful creature right now, before she glanced at the ceiling for a moment and imagined what sort of being was waiting for them at the end of the Emerald Nightmare, which equally excited and worried her, "I'm not sure how to feel about facing Xavius, but something tells me he will be one of our greatest challenges to date, more than most of the demons we've fought in the past."
Spitfire was happy to see that Rainbow was actually thinking about things and not rushing into battle without a care in the world, especially since they had no idea what sort of obstacles might be in front of them, hence the reason that she had all of them pause for a moment, to rest up and make sure everyone was ready for whatever else might be waiting for them in the rest of the Emerald Nightmare, because they really had no idea what might rest between them and Xavius, meaning a quick rest after a big fight was the smart thing for them to do in this situation. Once everyone was ready to move deeper into Shaladrassil, and see what sort of enemies might be waiting for them this time around, Spitfire walked forward as the rest of the heroes joined her, heading up the path that Nythendra had been guarding during both her life and unlife, even if they quickly found a group of satyr guarding part of the path and, by looking higher up the path, it sure looked like there were more enemies waiting for them, meaning they would have to fight their way through several groups before reaching the top of the path. Based on what she could tell it looked like the satyrs were skilled in using magic, Void-tainted thanks to being allied to Xavius and his dark master, who Malfurion revealed had to be the final of the four Old Gods of Azeroth, the one called N'Zoth, though the satyrs who had joined Xavius all those years ago, back when they were transformed into their new forms and joined their new master, had been sealed under Shaladrassil with the intent of giving them an endless sleep, but now they had returned and they were angry with the druids, hence why they came to Xavius' call and were now preparing to bring down Val'Sharah. Of course, since these guys were enemies of those who called Val'sharah home, the druids were the first ones to lash out and lashed with several of the satyrs, mauling and slashing at them while the rest of their group slashed at the corrupted enemies that happened to be around them, one being a lumbering one eyed beast who appeared from the mist that was around them and another being blackened trents who had been allies of the druids, now corrupted by Xavius, causing them to scatter branches and logs as they cut and blasted their way forward, dropping bodies on the ground and throwing the misklurkers, as the one eyed creatures were called, against some of the vines that the heroes walked by when they perished.
While they fought their way through all of their enemies, however, Malfurion paused every now and then to inform those who had no knowledge of his past that he had fought the Nightmare several times in the past, but this was the first time it had been this powerful and have such a hold on the Emerald Dream, showing him that Xavius was stronger than what the last time they had faced each other, something that worried and excited many of the heroes that were with them, and it wasn't long before they reached the top of the root path, where they discovered a number of branches that seemed to be connected to a number of portals that had to lead to a number of locations that the Nightmare had a grasp on, possibly an alternate dimension or something like that... which was when Malfurion rushed forward and came to a stop in the center of what appeared to be a root crossroads, with a large dormant flower of some kind in front of them, a bulb of some kind, to which the heroes gathered around him for a moment.
"This is an Iris, one that allows someone to travel from this part of the Dream and arrive in a section that reflects a version of Moonglade that exists only in the Dream," Malfurion said, though that was when he channeled his powers for a couple of seconds and immediately flinched when he came into contact with the power of the Iris, where Spitfire and the others could see that a foul dark magic was emitting from it and seemed to be preventing him from doing anything, which meant someone, no doubt Xavius, had to be blocking any intruders from moving deeper into the realm that they were invading at the moment, before he sighed for a moment and focused on the remaining paths, "I can sense tendrils of power radiating from each of the paths that are connected to this area, which happen to be fueling the touch of Cenarius that I feel on the Iris, though since this is the way forward we're going to need to sever each tendril and deprive the corrupted magic of all the power it is receiving... I will stay here and attempt to penetrate the corrupted power that stands between us and the portal that would bring us to Moonglade."
"Good luck, Malfurion, as I have the feeling that you'll need it," Spitfire replied, as while she knew that losing the power of the first druid in the entire history of Azeroth, an incredibly powerful figure who was likely a god at this point in time, was quite the blow to her, Rainbow, and the rest of the heroes, but given that Azeroth's heroes were used to dealing with foes like Xavius, as they had faced Archimonde at the height of his power and two Old Gods, three if one counted the various fragments of Y'Shaarj, she had the feeling that they would be able to overcome their enemies, even if it meant engaging in an epic battle and exhausting themselves to bring each of them down.
As Spitfire considered which of the four paths they should take first, which meant there were four powerful foes they had to bring down so they could move forward and find Xavius' hiding place, one of the druids pointed at the four portals and revealed that the one to their immediate right, which was heading diagonally downwards a little, would take them to an area called Un'Goro Crater, the one resting to their left went down a little as well and connected to Grizzly Hills, the one to the right of the second portal would bring them to the Dreamway, and the fourth one, between the first and third, would allow them to reach Mulgore. Given that each area had a powerful guardian protecting the Iris, or powering it based on what Malfurion had said, Spitfire glanced at the others for a moment and inquired as to which path they might take, had they done this without her and Rainbow, and found that while some would have tackled Grizzly Hills, a few picked heading into the twisted Dreamway, and a couple felt Mulgore was the correct choice, most of them revealed that they felt that the first portal they would have headed through was the Un'Goro Crater portal, as each of them felt that whatever might be resting on the other side needed to be destroyed first. As such, while Malfurion focused his energies on the Iris and told them that he would speak into their minds while they were taking down Xavius' guardians, which might be reports of his progress, Spitfire, Rainbow, and Azeroth's heroes headed down the path that would take them to Un'Goro Crater, where they passed through the portal and appeared in their destination, a massive Nightmare twisted area that had a dark red sky that seemed to be coming from a rotting World Tree in the middle of the crater, even though it looked like there were a bunch of twisted plants and what appeared to be a T-Rex that was guarding the path that would bring them to the front of the tree, which had a tumor of some kind growing in it. Before they did anything else the group took a few seconds to glance around the area they were in and took in what sort of enemies were between them and the tumor, as it had to be the guardian of this version of Un'Goro Crater, where the heroes informed Spitfire and Rainbow that there was no World Tree in this part of Azeroth, in the real world to be exact, meaning Xavius had been growing one in the Nightmare and that was bad news for everyone who called Azeroth home.
What foul horror is this? Malfurion asked, speaking into their minds for a moment, no doubt using the link that had been made when Thalyssra worked her magic over them and Theryn earlier, for Spitfire and Rainbow anyway, while using some of his own power to speak into the minds of the other heroes that were beside them, though none of them were remotely surprised by what was going on, even though it was clear he was focused on the corrupted World Tree and the tumor that was currently growing on it at the moment, which likely disgusted him, A tumor of the Nightmare's foul power, infecting an unknown World Tree, here in the reflection of the Titan's own playground? Heroes, if this seed is allowed to grow anymore than it already has, and the growth we're seeing is rather shocking, the roots of its corruption will wind their way all the way down into the very heart of Azeroth, something that would allow Xavius and his foul master to consume everything, granting N'Zoth the power of our world with little to no resistance.
"Then we'll destroy the tumor and destroy the corrupted World Tree," Spitfire remarked, as she had heard that there was a fallen World Tree somewhere in Azeroth, on the continent of Northrend if her memory was correct, a tree the druids had been forced to fell at some point in the past due to one of the Old Gods, or multiple, corrupting it, where they decided to call it Vordrassil, effectively renaming it in the process, though even as she thought about that she knew there were only two options for them to purify Shaladrassil, the first being to fell it once Xavius was defeated, which would devastate the druids of Val'sharah, or find and kill N'Zoth so his corruption was stopped, the latter likely being impossible since she knew that the Old Gods were unkillable, given that C'Thun and Yogg-Saron were still around.
With the rest of their allies agreeing with her, as this seemed to be the correct path forward, the group marched down the path that rested in front of them, as there happened to be one cut through the earth and lead right to where the corrupt tree was located, though along the way she and the others lashed out at the plant creatures that were resting around the path, due to the fact that they rushed at the group and started to use their thorny vines as whips, where she focused on loosing small bursts of Fel fire at spots to stop more of their enemies from advancing on them. While she did that, and the heroes dealt with the plant creatures, Rainbow flashed forward and slashed into the side of the T-Rex's head, knocking it to the side for a moment before it roared at her and tried to bite her, where she used her speed to avoid the attacks and swung her Warblades as she hacked into her opponent, showing the couple of heroes that paused to watch her that she was incredibly fast and that none of the T-Rex's attacks would be able to touch her, even though she did feel sorry for the creature since it had been forced to do this against its will. One thing Rainbow noted was that there were a couple of large tendrils growing out of the space that her foe had been guarding, tendrils that seemed like they were linked to the tumor that was growing on the false World Tree, or maybe it was a slumbering World Tree that hadn't grown in the waking world yet, though thanks to their positioning she found that they could simply walk by the tendrils and avoid them entirely, and it would give them a chance to conserve their power for a few seconds before engaging the foul tumor, which seemed to be waiting for enemies to approach it. When they got close to the corrupted World Tree, however, the group found that the tumor split open and revealed a massive eyeball that was now staring at them, one that was surrounded by the red color of the corruption and had a pair of thick tentacles, as wide as one of their bodies and had a dragon-like face, and it rested there as they gathered in the open area that was in front of it, granting Spitfire, Rainbow, and the heroes a few seconds to gather themselves before doing anything, though one thing they understood was that the energy in the air seemed to give them a name to call the tumor, Il'gynoth for some reason.
Instead of saying anything, as Spitfire could see that the rest of the group was ready to do battle with Il'gynoth, she shifted her stance and leapt into the air for a few seconds, allowing her to rapidly cross the distance between them and the tumor as everyone followed her, but that was when she discovered something that would complicate things as one of her blades bounced off a faint crimson barrier that seemed to be protecting Il'gynoth, or at least that seemed to be the case, and sure enough it was confirmed when the magical attacks from the mages bounced off of it. Truthfully, this was rather annoying since it prevented them from dealing any damage to their opponent, who just stared there and seemed to taunt them by spouting what seemed, at first, to be utter nonsense, mentioning 'to find Him, drown yourselves in the circle of stars', that they should 'welcome death', and a few other things, but as Spitfire listened to the tumor she realized something, it was, in a way, giving them information about the future, with the first phrase, the 'circle of stars', being a reference to where the prison of N'Zoth rested, meaning they might encounter him at some point in the future. Of course, while all of that went down, the two tentacles continued to try and assault them, even though the group was ignoring them for the most part, as all of them were sure that they were just guards in some sense and that they were doing a terrible job at stopping them from annoying Il'gynoth, but that was when Rainbow flashed over to one and just cut it down by delivering a couple of cuts to her target, breaking the tentacle down in seconds, though when she turned around, however, four crimson blood oozes appeared around her foe's form and moved towards her with the intent to bring her down. Scarlet, seeing that happen like all of the other heroes, instructed Rainbow to bring the oozes over to where Il'gynoth's eye was resting, who just stared at everyone as the tentacles tried to bring them down, where she made sure to bring the oozes over and everyone moved out of the way as they caught up with her, though once that happened all four of them seemed like they might be getting ready to explode, causing her to fly into the air for a moment and avoided the explosions that followed, red explosions that might have been fueled by potent Void energies, the same that were coursing through Il'gynoth's eye and the rest of its body, which seemed to do some damage as Il'gynoth growled in pain.
As such the group assaulted the remaining tentacle and hacked it apart in a matter of seconds, which was easy to do given that it was one foe against a full force of Azeroth's heroes, and once the blood oozes spawned the majority of the group made sure to pull away as Spitfire and Rainbow pulled them over to Il'gynoth's eye, where it didn't take them long to blow up all of the oozes in the eye's face, enraging it to the point where it started to loose small blasts of red energy at them, as if it had to be annoyed with them and wanted to bring it down. For the most part the group avoided the blasts and moved around the arena they were fighting in. Of course there was a corruption spell that Il'gynoth had access to, one that was scattered around most of the arena to stall them before they could do any additional damage, but what was interesting to Spitfire was that there were more enemies that emerged from the ground, a few being thin stalks that had eyes at the top of each one and, more importantly, there were a few tentacles that sprung up as well, which caused the heroes to divert their attention to the new enemies and blasted or hacked into them without delay. The reason was because they hoped all of the new arrivals would act like the pair of tentacles they had taken out just a few moments ago, which was confirmed in a matter of moments as one eye stalk fell and a single blood ooze formed around it, while a tentacle created four when it was crushed under the weight of their power, which they detonated on top of Il'gynoth's eye and delivered a blast of Void-tainted Life energy to it, causing the thing to shriek in pain as that happened, though while everyone felt that this creature was easy to fight, more so than Nythendra, none of them lowered their guard since one false move would allow it to turn the tide on them and gain the upper hand. Due to that fact the heroes were able to contain the tide of the blood oozes as they fought Il'gynoth's minions, or maybe appendages since it would make sense for its own power to be turned against it in this manner, though along the way Spitfire and Rainbow noticed that there was a hollow inside the corrupted tree that the creature seemed to be protecting, which contained a massive red twisted heart of some kind, meaning if they took out its eye they would be able to get to the heart and destroy Il'gynoth entirely, or at least that was their hope since this thing was quite durable and would take some time to take down if it stopped summoning minions.
Not a few moments after Spitfire thought about that, however, the latest batch of blood ooze managed to wound the eye enough to where it vanished in a matter of seconds, which allowed her, Rainbow, and the heroes to invade the hollow that the heart was resting in and found that it had no such barrier resting around it, meaning everyone was able to deliver their most powerful attacks to the organ in question as Il'gynoth shrieked in pain and spouted more nonsense, saying that this pain 'would be returned a thousand-fold', as if it would be reborn at some point in the future, but in the end it didn't even matter as the heroes crushed the heart and brought an end to the corruption that was called Il'gynoth.
"I'm not sure whether to be overjoyed that we beat it, or be annoyed that it had a cheap trick to bring it down," Rainbow commented, as she really didn't like Il'gynoth and that meant she wasn't going to like Xavius or N'Zoth, when they got to beating those beings since she figured that they would track down N'Zoth once Sargeras and the Legion were taken care of, and she could tell that a number of the other heroes were thinking the same thing, that Il'gynoth had been annoying in the grand scheme of things, even though everyone was pleased to have brought it down in the end, cutting off the power between it and the Iris.
"I have the feeling that we'll be seeing it again, if it is allied with N'Zoth," Spitfire remarked, though as she said that, and the heroes left the corrupted tree's hollow so they could return to the area that Malfurion was currently working in, she took a moment to engage her power and set fire to the World Tree, allowing the Fel fire to burn away the corruption and most of this area of the Nightmare, before she returned to the others and walked up the path that they had been walking up, as it was time for them to pick another path and head into another part of the Nightmare.
Crushing Il'gynoth would give Malfurion an edge in his work, to turn the tide against Xavius' power and open the Iris so all of them could head to Moonglade, so they could track down their foe and bring him down, but for now her place was for them to stop near the Iris and take a short break, just so everyone would be ready for the next powerful creature that had to be standing in their way and get over the battle that had just ended, all while knowing that time was of the essence and that the moment everyone was ready they would descend deeper into the Nightmare, even though she hoped Thalyssra and all of their allies were fine, something she and Rainbow would figure out upon their return to Suramar.