Yeah. Frostmourne, drove him mad, with all the power and the
curse from it.
And yikes, it's not Arthas. Here's the story. Wait, I'm confused.
The demon lord Kil'jaeden
punished Ner'zhul for his defiance, destroying his aging body and
torturing his spirit. The demon then offered Ner'zhul a final
ultimatum: serve the Legion unconditionally or suffer eternal
agony. With little other choice, Ner'zhul pledged to obey
Kil'jaeden and was reborn as a terrifying and vastly powerful agent
of the Legion the Lich King.
Ner'zhul's spirit was magically shackled to a suit of ancient armor
and bound to the mighty runeblade Frostmourne. To ensure Ner'zhul's
obedience, Kil'jaeden sealed the armor and blade within a specially
crafted block of ice collected from the far reaches of the Twisting
Nether. This frozen crystal was then cast into the ripe and
unsuspecting world of Azeroth, settling in the desolate, snowy
wastes of Northrend.
Among the abilities bestowed upon the Lich King was lordship over
death itself. From within his Frozen Throne, Ner'zhul summoned a
number of undead to serve him and tested his army against the
nerubians of Azjol-Nerub and their mighty spiderlord, Anub'arak.
Although the War of the Spider raged for years, many nerubians who
fell in battle quickly became bound to the Lich King's iron will.
Anub'arak himself was eventually ambushed and slain, rising again
to join Ner'zhul's ranks as a fearsome crypt lord.
The Lich King appeared to be faithfully serving his master, but he
had in fact hatched a cunning and subversive plan. To that end, he
created a small fissure in his prison, pushed Frostmourne through
it, and directed his minions to carry the runeblade away from the
Frozen Throne. Ner'zhul intended to use the sword as bait for a
mighty champion: a loyal subject who would free him and serve as a
vessel for his restless spirit. While Frostmourne was positioned to
serve its future purpose, the Lich King dutifully proceeded with
his demon master's true agenda...
Since arriving on Azeroth, the Lich King had been formulating an
insidious plague of undeath, a terrifying disease meant to
annihilate humanity and create an army faithful to the Burning
Legion. To expedite the spread of this contagion, the Lich King
recruited a powerful ally in the ambitious mage Kel'Thuzad, a
senior member of Dalaran's ruling council.
Under the Lich King's watchful gaze, Kel'Thuzad created the Cult of
the Damned, a group of humans to whom he promised social equality
and eternal life on Azeroth. The cultists spread the plague
throughout Lordaeron's northern villages, amassing a host of
mindless undead. Kel'Thuzad looked upon the growing army and named
it the Scourge, for at the Lich King's whim it would surely scour
humanity from the face of the world.
To be continued...
